The Wicked Game
by Sindeniirelle
Summary: EroicaWicked crossover. Pairings: DorianKlaus, ElphabaGlinda. AU that tries to stay as true as possible to both universes. The Major is getting married, and Eroica isn't the only one who isn't happy about it...
1. Chapter 1: Wedding Plans

**The Wicked Game**

_From Eroica with Love/Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West _cross-over

By Sindeniirelle

R

Dorian/Klaus, Elphaba/Glinda

Contains spoilers for _Wicked _as well as the first nineteen or so volumes of _Eroica_. Takes place in the _Wicked _canon (book-verse, although with some elements drawn from the musical-verse) around part 14 of _The Murder and Its Aftermath_, in _Eroica _shortly after the events in _Emperor's Waltz. _In any case, it is an AU fic that tries it's best to stay as true as possible to both universes and their respective characters.

Also worth noting, in this fanfiction time flows differently on Oz than on Earth, so that one year on Oz is the equivalent to roughly ten or so years on Earth.

_From Eroica with Love _is property of Aoike Yasuko, Princess Comics, and DC Comics. _Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West _is property of Gregory Maguire. _Wicked: The Musical _is property of Gregory Maguire, Stephen Schwartz, and Winnie Holzman. The original _The Wizard of Oz _was written by L. Frank Baum, and was also used as inspiration for this fanfiction. No profit was made from this story.

**Prologue**

Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach, NATO Intelligence Officer, stood in the half-opened doorway to the darkened church. Normally, he liked churches. They were quiet. Supposedly good for the soul. And they were a good place to take a nap.

But this place…large flakes of shimmering white snow were haphazardly floating in through the large doorway, disappearing in the shadows around him, and the elaborate stained-glass window loomed up before him, covering the entire wall. The centre figure was some sort of saint or an angel. The pose was relatively standard—one hand over his chest, the other pointing towards the ground, the head slightly inclined—but the expression on the face was almost mischievous, devious.

The Major shuddered in revulsion to think it, but the resemblance to that annoying thief Eroica, who had taken to interfering with his life at every possible opportunity, was downright uncanny. Especially with all those long golden curls.

He could turn around, go back to his hotel until it was time for the meeting. But, in the end, for reasons he could not articulate, he decided to enter the empty church anyways. Even with the painting's laughing eyes watching him. He snorted. The very idea of Eroica as an angel…that bugger was more like Satan. Always messing up his missions with his idiocy and perversion.

Still…the resemblance was uncanny. Despite himself, the Major caught himself looking at the window again, and slumped down in one of the back pews, closing his eyes.

The thief was not _entirely _without merit. He had proven somewhat useful on the last mission. He had allowed himself to get beaten in order to steal the microfilm back. There had been certain amount of selflessness in that. Klaus hadn't been able to get angry with him, after that.

The Major caught himself, and scowled into the darkness. There was work to do, and no time at all for such foolish idiotic reveries.

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Elphaba was hunched over in the unionist chapel in Saint Glinda's square. It was an older chapel, with frescoes adorning the cubby-holes. Not that Elphaba cared in the least for those silly things. She felt tired. She wasn't entirely sure what had brought her to the chapel. Loneliness, perhaps, if she were still capable of such a human thing as loneliness. There was an oratory to Saint Glinda, a tomb-like space, barely lit, with a smoky image of the saint. She was probably lucky to find even that much, considering how most of the old saints had been discarded for the 'Glorious Wizard.' She practically snarled at the thought of that man, although she managed to control herself, and concentrated on the statue of the saint.

Saint Glinda had been the namesake of her roommate at Shiz so long ago. It felt like lifetimes ago. And she had not seen Glinda of the Arduennas of the Uplands in years. Not that Glinda had been anything like her namesake. Elphaba couldn't claim to know much about saints, despite her father being a minister, she couldn't remember any inspiring legends or heart-warming stories, she just saw the water-damage on the neglected ikon and bowed her head, although in tiredness rather than in prayer. Chapels were quiet. They were a good place to take a quick nap.

Still, that giddy, shallow, annoying and snobbish girl she had gone to school with could have been nothing like a saint.

Elphaba drew the old lace shawl tighter around her shoulders. She couldn't lie to herself or to her memory. Glinda had been capable of thought—_intelligent _thought—when she had tried. Elphaba remembered her as sweet girl she had become, the girl who had followed her to the Emerald City. The girl she had kissed in the back of a carriage somewhere long ago.

No. Those thoughts are too dangerous. Don't think about it. It never happened.

They had seemed like friends for a while.

Nevertheless, she shouldn't miss her golden-haired, giggling roommate as much as she did. And she could not explain the ache in her heart that had brought her to the place of her Glinda's namesake now, after such a long time spent devoting herself to her work in the underground and trying to forget Glinda-Galinda-Glinda-Galinda…

Elphaba closed her eyes.

She had work to do, and no time at all for such foolish reveries.

**Chapter One: The Confessions of Glinda the Good**

_The Witch took Glinda's arm. "Glinda, you look hideous in that getup. I thought you'd have developed some sense by now."_

"_When in the provinces," she said, "you have to show them a little style. I don't think it's so bad. Or are the satin bells at the shoulder a bit too _too_?"_

--_Wicked: The Life and Times_

**Present Day.**

**(1988.)**

Dorian Red Gloria lay stretched out on the red divan in Castle Gloria's lush drawing room, a half-opened book sliding from his lap, his gaze resting upon one of the many rare and priceless works of art that surrounded his castle. His head rested on one arm and he stretched catlike across the sofa, his long torrent of golden curls cascading over broad shoulders.

"Jones, love, God knows it's been a while since our last heist…Who knows what our peers are saying in the criminal underworld?" the Englishman said slowly, although he did not seem particularly inclined to move, right at the moment.

The young man with short auburn hair tried to hide a grimace. As one of the core members of the Earls' gang of thieves he knew exactly what Dorian was referring to. A few nights ago they had attended the Annual Rogue's Gallery, an event the Earl himself had hosted at his castle in North Downs some years ago. While at the party, they had overheard the latest bit of gossip, none of which was particularly pleasing to the Earl's ears.

"I mean, the very idea that I'm losing my touch! Me! _Eroica_! The greatest art thief in English—no, _world_—history!" Dorian muttered, rising and tossing the ancient tome across the drawing room so that it crashed into a wall displaying two Rembrandts, a Monet, and a Van Gogh with a moderately satisfying thud. "I mean sure there was that…difficulty…with that haunted statue, but by Jove _anyone _would have been spooked by that!"

"Of course, m'lord…" the thief answered uncertainly.

"What! What's that look for?" Dorian asked, sitting up so that more of the long golden curls tumbled into his face. "And old, who are they calling _old_! Twenty-nine is _NOT OLD!"_

"No, uh…sir, you're _thirty_," Jones corrected.

The Earl huffed, folding his arms indignantly over his lean chest, muttering something about age and thirty and "…why, that's not even _mature_! Well, what do they know? I'm still Eroica, the Prince of Thieves, the—"

"Yes, m'lord," Jones sighed, "But you wanted to steal something. Has anything struck your fancy lately?"

At that moment a peculiar looking short, skinny accountant in a tattered and stained woolen suit with incredibly messy black hair came scurrying into the room, Casio mini calculator in hand, not to mention the stack of forms or receipts (the Earl groaned at the sight of paperwork and turned away)—"Myyyyyyy Looooooooord! Did you just say we were going to steal something? Finally! We really didn't get enough for that last Waterhouse we fenced, and—and you'll never believe the rise the price of—"

"James, calm down!" Dorian sighed, massaging his temples.

The diminutive accountant paused for a second, shifting through the stack of week-old newspapers he had no doubt purloined from some trash bin rather than bought, before exclaiming: "OH! My Lord, the National Gallery has just acquired some new Rembrandts, if we were to snatch those up, they'd be worth quite a—"

But the Earl of Gloria shrugged. "Oh I don't know…" He flicked a few golden curls out of his face, wide blue eyes blinking open drowsily. "I've grown _bored _of Rembrandt. And the National Gallery is _hardly _a challenge to a thief of _my _skill.

They all knew what he was thinking. What Eroica was really hungering for was another mission of danger and espionage with NATO and one certain gorgeous-but-frigid German major…the thief had begun making a habit of it years ago, to get caught up in the handsome officer's missions one way or another, teasing the violent, dangerous, and homophobic officer all across Europe…

But lately, Major Eberbach hadn't been leading any dangerous missions on NATO's behalf. Eroica couldn't imagine why (although he was quite painfully bored…) and though Jones, James, Bonham, and the rest of his team knew the reason for the Major's absence from NATO affairs they would be DAMNED if they were going to relate the news to their lord. They didn't want to think about the madness, the anger, or worse case scenario, the depression, that would occur if Dorian were to find out that the man he had loved unrequitedly (some would say madly) but devotedly (bordering on obsession) for the past decade and a half was….

Getting married.

To a woman.

The Earl's men wisely kept silent.

00000000000000000

Heinz von dem Eberbach was not certain whether to feel relieved that his son was finally getting married, or profoundly uneasy about it. As the chauffer drove towards the Schloss Eberbach, he stared out the window at the passing German countryside and frowned. The Eberbach family line certainly needed to continue, and he had certainly been pleased to learn that his son, Klaus, was _finally _taking his advice and marrying one of the many suitable young women he had suggested. But it had been afterwards that the doubts began setting in, as he remembered more and more things about his son's unusual birth that he had tried so long to simply forget.

His son had been a miracle, for a lot of reasons. Not the least being that Heinz' wife Henrietta, whom he had loved so dearly, and who, as far as Klaus would ever know was his mother, had died a year before Klaus' birth.

He still remembered the horrific scandal that had erupted the day when, as far as the rest of his family was concerned, Klaus had mysteriously appeared out of thin air one day. Who was the mother? He couldn't tell them that. And that, naturally, was the crux of the whole damned ordeal. After all, how often did it happen that the _mother_ was unknown? His family assumed she had been some prostitute (or else why wouldn't he tell them her name or where she was from?).

Due only to his power as head of one of the oldest and most respected families in Germany, and the power and commanding authority he had retained from his service as a tank commander in the war, had he been able to keep everything under control. As it was, to this day, very few people knew that his son was a bastard. Klaus himself had been raised to believe that his mother had been Henrietta, and that she had died shortly after giving birth to him.

So why did he suddenly have this horrible feeling that everything he had worked so hard to control, through blackmail and extortion in some cases, was going to fall apart? It was probably just his own morbid mindset, he told himself as the looming stone walls of the Schloss came into sight. After all, what bearing could things so long past possibly have on the future? He hadn't seen Klaus' real mother in _decades_. She had not even been the one to bring the baby Klaus to him on that spring night in 1955, but an old withered crone who referred to herself simply as 'Nanny.'

He still remembered the strange conversation he had with the near-crazed old hag on that fateful night:

"_Of course she doesn't want the baby! You think she has time to be raising a child, with all the work she's doing? She's trying to win a war against the most powerful man in the world, by the Unnamed God! And I never knew anyone so obsessed with her work…her experiments with monkeys, her research into that damned book, and not to mention all the hours she spends strategizing and planning and plotting…and as for me, well poor old Nanny can hardly look after another child at MY age! Honestly, that boy Liir is bad enough, always trying to sneak off with those soldiers even though his mother hates it. Hopefully this one's got a little more sense."_

He had just held little Klaus in his arms, in his entire life, it was the one moment he could remember where he had been close to doing such an unmanly thing as weeping. It felt like the baby he and Henrietta had always wanted to have.

He had known without question or doubt that Klaus truly was his son. Over the years, his son had grown to look more and more like his father, and Heinz could not have been prouder, although his own inexperience with children hindered him from saying so.

The butler Conrad Hinkel did much of the work in caring for Klaus as an infant, but there were moments when Heinz wondered if perhaps he should have remarried for Klaus' sake. There were moments when Klaus' expression, even as a small child, would ghost over with something incredibly dark and thoughtful and sombre, and those were the only moments where Heinz was really reminded of the boy's bizarre parentage.

00000000000000000

Dorian Red Gloria was absently leafing through a brochure of the latest treasures acquired by the Louvre and wondering, casually, if he could be bothered to get the team together to steal anything he only half-wanted, when Bonham entered, an unusually pale and stressful look on his round face. The Earl looked up from the booklet and frowned. "Bonham, my goodness, man, you look as if you've seen a ghost!"

"Uh…my lord," his most loyal thief answered, distinctly uncomfortable. "You just received a phone call, my lord. It was from your—ah, mother. Lady Gloria says she'll be dropping by later this week, said—"

"What?" Dorian shook his mane of golden curls in disbelief. He hadn't seen his mother since his father's funeral, and even then, they hadn't spoken. She had taken his sisters and left when he was thirteen years old. She hadn't wanted anything to do with a homosexual thief of a son then; he couldn't imagine what she wanted _now_. And he didn't particularly want to spend his time entertaining a woman who had, for all intents and purposes, abandoned him. "What does that old witch want?" he muttered.

"Uh—can't imagine, my lord. She said she just wanted to talk to you."

"Talk to me? She hasn't wanted to talk to me in seventeen years!" he tried to laugh, but it fell flat. He didn't even know what to think of that idea. "Well?"

"I couldn't presume to imagine, my lord," the thief answered, giving him a sympathetic look.

Dorian sighed. "Well, best send most of the lads off on vacation or something, then. I can't very well barricade the doors and refuse to let her in, now, can I?" although his expression seemed to imply he would like to do that very much.

"Come on now, I'm sure it won't be that bad," Bonham offered, patting the Earl's shoulder. "Just a little talk and then I'm sure she'll be back off to the South of France or wherever it is she's livin' these days."

Two days later, a silver Porsche drove up the winding dirt road that led to the North Downs' castle. Dorian stayed in his room, a tea cup balanced carefully between his fingers. He felt uneasy about meeting a woman he had neither seen nor heard from since his childhood. And what memories he did have of her weren't all that pleasant.

She had an annoying shrill sort of voice. He remembered that most of all.

He heard the knock on the door, and someone went to answer it. A minute later, Jones came to his room. "My lord, Lady Gloria is here to see you. She's waiting in the drawing room."

He took his time in going down to see her, wearing a loose-fitting white shirt with full ruffled sleeves and black trousers. When he finally made his way to the drawing room, she was sitting on one of the chairs, her face completely obscured by a dark veil attached to her silver hat. Her blue dress was almost ridiculous in its sheer volume of skirts. (And he had thought that _he _had a taste for extravagant clothing!) She seemed to be watching him for a moment, although with that veil hiding her face so entirely he couldn't really tell.

She was twisting a handkerchief around in her hands. "Oh by Lurline, Dorian…" she gasped.

He managed to pique one golden eyebrow. "What?"

She was half-rising out of her seat by now, staring at him. "By Lurline, it's been too long…I didn't realize the time…"

"You're not making much sense," he muttered.

"Oh, Dorian…" she reached up, and in one movement tore the hat and veil from her head. A mess of vibrant golden curls tumbled loosely over her shoulders, and there was a sort of tiara-thing resting on her forehead. But what really got him was her face. In the seventeen years she had been gone from his life, she hadn't appeared to age a day! In fact, if anything, she looked _better _than she had that day she had packed up and left. She looked like an older sister, not his mother! For a minute he just stared at her, utterly dumbstruck.

Then it dawned on him. It couldn't be his mother, looking like someone in her late thirties, at the oldest. His mother had to have been in her late seventies, at least, and yet there she was standing, with smooth pale skin, ruby lips, and brilliant golden curls.

It couldn't possibly be, the only explanation was that it was one of his sisters, and she just happened to have grown into an uncanny resemblance of their mother. "Uh…Clarice," he stumbled shakily. "How closely you resemble Mother."

She looked sad then, her ruby lips curling into a delicate pout. She walked a few steps one way, and then the other, her heels clicking on the ground. "Oh Dorian…" she sighed. "This IS me! Uh, Mum."

"That's not possible…"

"Oh, but it is! It is! You see your father and I might have acted like ordinary English citizens but the truth was we really weren't not at all," she began excitedly. "Well, you see Lord Chuffrey Gloria's family did go back to that wretched pirate, but, well, as near as I can figure it out from what you're father told me, that pirate—"

"Luminous," Dorian frowned.

"Yes, yes, whatever," she prattled. "On one of his adventures he came across this strange mirror that had belonged to a powerful wizard—"

"What?" Dorian blinked. "Are you feeling alright?"

"And this wizard had happened to come upon a sort of portal to another world—"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"And this world was Oz, which was where I'm from, actually. Anyways, so ever since Luminous' descendants began living in both worlds, all the way up to Chuffrey. So, you see, Dorian, when I left Chuffrey I didn't go to any silly country, I went back to Oz, to Gillikin (that's in the North). See?"

He stared at for several minutes. She had a strange sort of grin on her face. "…See?"

"So, have you had plastic surgery or something…?" because it really didn't look like she had, but it just wasn't possible…

"Uh! Dorian you're not listening to me!" she cried in exasperation. "Where's your butler, anyways? I really need a drink. Oh…the time changes differently between Earth and Oz. One year on Oz is nearly a decade on Earth! Only, I didn't know that because your father, like with so many other LITTLE things, decided it wasn't worth telling me about. I only realized when I came back for his funeral, and then I didn't get a chance to really see you, you left so soon!"

Meanwhile, Dorian was searching his mind, trying desperately to remember what his mother had looked like at Dad's funeral, only he _had _left once he had heard that she and his sisters were coming, and he had only caught a glimpse of her, again wearing the thick veils.

"And then I was going to come back, but honey you wouldn't believe the mess of things they're making in Oz! What with the Animals and the unionists and all of this new controversy over the Wizard because of the recent—are you paying attention?"

He stared at her.

"Anyways, I am the 'official' sorceress of the Wizard, or something, I think. It's all very complicated. Anyways, everyone was always dragging me off to help this or that, or appear at this or that. No one really seemed to mind much of it that Chuffrey was gone…" she smirked a little at this. "Anyways, I _am_ Glinda the Good, officially, after all, I just couldn't…" she spun around then, in such a dizzying whirl that Dorian hadn't time to get out of the way. She reached up and touched his face, suddenly a profoundly sad expression clouding her eyes. "Dorian, I _am _sorry. It was never my intention to leave you all alone like this."

This time, he did back away from her touch. "You disappeared for nearly twenty years," he said simply. "Forgive me if I really don't see how that could be done 'unintentionally.'" It was hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice, so he didn't.

"Oh," she said simply. She looked sad. "Oh, yes…I…well…you know, it really _wasn't _that long on Oz, and when I could finally get away…people are dying there, you see, and well, everything's been so complicated lately."

"Do you remember much of that last conversation we had? I know it was a long time ago for you…But, when you said you never wanted to get married…I don't know. Most of my life was spent fantasizing about who I would marry. A man of high social standing, wealth, someone who could open doors for me to a life of extravagance and luxury. It was my dream. And so, when it finally happened, and I finally married Lord Chuffrey of Gloria—I guess I…tried to convince myself that I was really, truly, honestly happy. I mean…happy is just what happens when your dreams come true! It's just was naturally follows—isn't it?"

"But you weren't happy…were you?" Dorian asked slowly, wondering why he should really care.

The handkerchief in his mother's grasp was being twisted to mercilessly. She bore such an expression of—guilt? Despair? He almost felt sorry for her. Almost. This was still the woman who had abandoned him when he was thirteen years old, and hadn't even tried to contact him in all the years since.

"I was…I wasn't…oh! What a celebration it was, though! A fairy-tale come true…grand, and beautiful, and all the cheering…but…Yes, I admit, it was the tiniest bit…unlike I had anticipated. It was a little—well, a little complicated."

"What do you mean 'complicated?'"

"Well…there was a—a kind of a—sort of a—cost. A couple of things got…lost. And then when the whole 'thrill' of it didn't thrill like I thought it would…WELL! Still, I mean, anyways, who wouldn't have been happy? So, I guess…I mean…I must have been happy."

"But it obviously wasn't, because you left us."

"I left _him_! I never meant to leave you! Only, I…I seem to have been making these foolish mistakes my entire life. We had been arguing for so long, and finally somehow Chuffrey convinced me that everyone would be happiest if I took the girls and left you. And somehow, in my naivety—no, my—my idiocy—I believed him. But it's really more complicated than you think! Let me explain."

**16 Years Earlier.**

**(Earth Reckoning).**

Glinda shivered. When she opened her eyes, the pitch blackness of night met her gaze. Still, the shaking wouldn't stop, so she pulled herself out of the deep feather blankets and lit the candle resting on her bedside. She stared at the small light for several moments, feeling a horrible depressing blackness creep over her heart, although she could not say why. For the next several minutes she sat that way, every muscle in her body tensed, her heart pounding. She clenched the edge of the bed beneath her.

It wasn't the first time since leaving Chuffrey and her only son, taking her daughters, and returning to Oz that she had been awakened in the night by mysterious horrible feelings and unnamed fears. But this was the first time it had felt _so _bad. She shuddered, and covered her face with her hands.

"Am I going to regret this for the rest of my life?"

_Yes. Of course you are. _

She felt the cold brush of tears against her fingers and pulled her hands away. And all her acts of "Good" and charity like visiting orphanages in Munchkinland were never going to make this guilt dissipate.

Years earlier, she had agreed to marry Lord Chuffrey, Earl of Red Gloria. He had owned many attractive properties in Northern Oz, in Gillikin, and even more astonishingly, his bridge to that other world. It was, he had said, the world that the Wizard himself had come from. In fact, it was something the Wizard would want very much, maybe even kill to take, so they had to keep it very, very secret. But it was something she had immediately wanted to tell Elphaba, although she didn't even know where to find her old roommate.

It was something Elphaba would have known more about, but she hadn't seen Elphaba since their last year at Shiz together. She hadn't seen Elphaba since that painfully sweet moment in the back of the carriage in the Emerald City…

"_Hold out, my sweet." _Elphaba had whispered back then.

But she hadn't, had she?

And that hurt deep in her heart, aching and bleeding, buried beneath everything else.

In any case.

The world Sir Chuffrey introduced her to had been easy enough to grow accustomed to, Chuffrey's family had been doing it for generations and she soon caught on. It wasn't that much different from Oz, really, except that there were no Animals (again, the thoughts of Elphaba…she pushed those away, swallowing the pain deep inside her chest) and there was no Wizard, there was a Prime Minister instead.

Whatever.

It hadn't made such a big difference to her, once Chuffrey had told her what was expected of her, which was no different from in Oz—look pretty and be well dressed, except that she didn't come and go in a giant bubble.

Over the incredible distances she even managed to bury the pain she felt at missing Elphaba a little more effectively. Oz or England. It had made no difference.

But now it did. Because she was back in Oz, and that cheating bastard Chuffrey could rot in hell in England or wherever else he had figured out how to go, but she had, in a moment of pure and thoughtless weakness, given in to him one last time, and come back to her ruby castle in Gillikin with only three of her four children.

She muffled a cry and tore at her long golden curls.

There was a knock at her door. Her oldest daughter came in, a thin lanky girl with straight brown hair. "Mother, what's the matter? It's well past midnight!"

"Oh, don't worry about me, Daphne," Glinda murmured, but her daughter was standing right in front of her, and the tears she felt streaming down her face must have been reflected in the candle light.

"Mother! What is it? What's wrong?" Daphne cried, clasping her shaking hands in her own. "Are you ill? Do you feel alright?"

"I'm fine…" she whispered hoarsely, turning her face away from her daughter.

"I'm worried…I'm worried about your brother. The reason I finally decided to leave was to protect him from your father's madness, but somehow in the whole mess of it, I ended up leaving without him…how did this happen? And this was a year ago…and oh one year here is so many MORE on Earth! Oh, by the Unnamed God, I don't know what to do anymore…"

"Mother, please! Stop your worrying over that disgusting freak!" Daphne snapped. "You're beating yourself up over this when you don't have to!"

"Daphne…stop it, please," Glinda closed her eyes, her headache was returning, worse than ever now.

"He was a dirty pervert, just like his father, you were right to leave them both!"

"Daphne, STOP IT! Don't talk about Dorian that way!"

The girl stared at her with wide eyes for a moment.

"Go back to your room," she murmured, her hands running back over her face, tangling in her hair as she slumped forwards along the corner of the bed. "Leave me alone."

**1 Year Earlier.**

**(1970 on Earth)**

Glinda felt ill. England air was so much more different than the air in Oz. She was getting head aches more and more frequently, and listening to four children bicker constantly was doing nothing to help it. She lay back on one of the sofas, propped up by a pillow, her long mane of curls tied back and out of her way in a hideous bun. She'd lost a lot of weight lately. She almost looked like a skeleton.

Chuffrey was becoming more and more distant, he no longer even tried to give the impression that he cared for her on any level. He no longer seemed to care what she or anyone else for that matter, saw or heard. He always had the pretty young men fawning over him. She felt humiliated, and betrayed.

_Were these children all I was good for to you, Chuffrey? And you don't even pay any attention to your three daughters. And what about my baby, Dorian? You're trying to turn him into a thief—a criminal!_

The head aches worsened.

The days would go by, the pretty winsome young men would be paraded past her, as though taunting her, and Dorian was beginning to be drawn into their circles.

"_Chuffrey, don't you see what's happening? Dorian is—Dorian will be--"_

"_He doesn't mind, so why do you?" Chuffrey muttered. He didn't seem to regard her existence as worthy of even being snapped at. Just a passing mutter of discontent. _

_She felt her anger boil. _

"_Dorian is a CHILD, by the Unnamed God, you monster!"_

Then one day, her daughters started commenting on it. They were jealous because the handsome young boys were obviously more interested in Dorian than in any of them. "I think it's dirty!"

"Perverted!"

"They're disgusting!"

Glinda pressed her hands over her eyes. Her head was pounding and aching. She wanted to cry and scream and pull her hair and—

And then, Chuffrey had approached her (after not speaking to her for weeks) and told her that he thought Dorian would make a wonderful professional thief. A criminal. She hadn't married into an aristocratic family so that her children would grow up _stealing! _

"_You're not only raising my son to grow up as a pervert, but a THIEF as well!" she shrieked, her eyes wide in horror. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You're mad! Do you hear me, Chuffrey? You're completely insane! You must be insane, otherwise how—how could you be proposing such things!"_

_Chuffrey had looked at her with contempt. "His ancestor was made an earl by being a thief pirate on the sea! The fact that he has a talent for theft just shows how pure his Gloria lineage is."_

_She stared at him in disbelief. "Chuffrey…have you completely lost it? This isn't—there aren't any pirates anymore! Look around you, we live in a CASTLE, he doesn't need to be a PETTY THIEF!" she shrieked, forgetting the proper language of her rank that she had trained herself so long to grow accustomed to._

_Dorian had heard them. She stared at him hard, trying to understand, but his face looked so strangely distant in that moment, oddly blank. Then he smiled. "It's more fun being a thief, Mother."_

"_Maybe so, but, oh Dorian, you can't—"_

_Chuffrey put his arm around his son's shoulders. "He doesn't mind, so why do you? Back off, Glinda."_

_She felt her hands shaking. "No! No, you can't do this to my son, Chuffrey! He's not going to be some common thief after I worked so hard to make sure my children would be able to grow up in wealth and comfort and splendour—Dorian! Dorian, I'm taking your sisters and we're leaving—we're going some place far, far away from this—this mad man! You come with us, Dorian. Go on, get your things. We're leaving."_

_But he just smiled at her with that innocent child's smile. "I don't want to leave, mother. I want to stay here. I want to be myself."_

"_No! Dorian, come with me! You can still be an honest, GOOD citizen! A respectable human being!"_

_Chuffrey scowled at her. "Just because you have to keep carrying on the whole 'Glinda the Good' act doesn't mean your son has to be some sort of goody-two-shoes saint."_

"_I don't want my baby to be a CRIMINAL!"_

In the end she had given up. She had taken her three daughters and vanished. She had just left him there. Chuffrey had somehow convinced her that everyone would be happiest this way. It was only after she had returned to Gillikin that she realized how truly horrible her mistake had been. And then…how could she go back? What could she say? What could she do to make her son come and live with her in the Red Castle?

"Chuffrey…just…_please_, keep him away from that horrible, horrible man, Price," those had been the last words she had spoken to her husband, ever.

It had begun just before she had finally taken her daughters and gone. Price, some sort of friend of Chuffrey's, had begun inviting them over to view his art collection on a regular basis. He had a magnificent collection, and of course Dorian, who loved beautiful pieces of artwork, enjoyed seeing the collection. But she didn't like that man one bit. She felt uneasy the entire time they were there. Her skin crawled. She didn't like the way he looked at her son.

She had seen him once, with his arm around her son's little shoulders, saying something that sounded like "I look forward to getting to know you better in the future, Dorian."

It was the first time she'd ever felt something so strong she had no name for it other than to call it maternal instinct. "Dorian, we're leaving, right now!" she hadn't meant to shout it, but the words sort of ripped through her throat in a strangled squeaking yell.

And that pervert had had enough audacity to say: "Why don't you let me show him around a little longer, Lady Gloria? I'll send him home afterward."

She had all-but snarled at him. She didn't think she could mask the look of horror and outrage that crossed her face, and this time she did yell: "Absolutely NOT! We're LEAVING! DORIAN!"

She had felt badly for having yelled in front of Dorian afterwards. They walked home, and she was still so horribly shaken she began saying things maybe she shouldn't have said in his presence, "He always has young men fawning over him! It's disgusting!"

And when Dorian had said confusedly, "But father also—"

She'd almost snapped. Chuffrey using her was the last thing she wanted to hear about at that time.

He'd looked so little and scared from her yelling. She'd felt horrible afterwards, but then came the fights with Chuffrey over thievery and the headaches, and somehow she'd never had a chance to explain to him...

**The Present.**

Dorian was very quiet by the time she had finished her story. She stood watching, however, and there were genuine tears in her eyes. "Ah. Sorry…I didn't mean to go on forever," she said softly, when a servant arrived with drinks. She took a glass and emptied it in one gulp. "Elphaba always did say I prattled on too much."

"Who was this 'Elphaba' you mention her a lot in your story, too," he asked, although he turned and stared out the window at the trees growing in the garden. The sunlight was filtering through the leaves. He wasn't really concentrating on her answer, his mind still trying to take in the version of events she had told him.

"What? Oh, n—no one, just someone I went to school with long ago. We had a fight over a pair of shoes and haven't spoken to each other since," she laughed, but it was a nervous uneasy laugh, not a jovial one. "We went to Shiz together…"

"Shiz? I've never heard of 'Shiz.' I thought you went to Oxford with Dad?"

She sighed. "I told you, I didn't even come to this world until after I married your father!"

"You really are mad," he shook his head. "Saying all this nonsense about other worlds…well, why should I believe a single word you've just said?"

"Dorian…" she crossed the room in quick little steps, and before he knew it, had captured him in a hug. It had been more than ten years since his mother had hugged him, and he didn't know how he was supposed to respond to the sudden and unexpected show of emotion, so he stood quite still and uncomfortable until she had finished.

There were tears in her blue eyes. "Oh, my darling! I really didn't mean to leave you alone for such a dreadfully long time. You see, I love your sisters very much, but you—_you_ were always the most like me. And I suppose part of the reason I allowed myself to keep getting caught up where I was needed on Oz and avoid coming back was because I was also afraid of that. You see, when I saw you at your father's funeral, I could recognize it right away. You were so much like _me _at that age and I just couldn't—part of my just couldn't face _Galinda_ again!" she put her hands to her face, and shuddered.

"I've made a terrible mother, and I accept that. You see, it got to the point where I felt I'd already been gone for so long, from your time, that it would be even worse to come back, and so—and so I've been trying to work up the courage to come and see you again!"

This was more than he ever could have expected from her, and he was too dumbfounded to respond at all, at first. "What…what do you mean 'the most like you?' In what sense?"

She laughed, something choked and hysterical, wiping the tears from her eyes and shaking her head. "Oh oh oh, all of it! The frilly costumes, the attitude, the art…oh, by the way, did you know the National Gallery is acquiring some new Rembrandts? Anyways, where was I? Oh yes…"

"Mother…I don't really know what to think of any of this. I mean, you're showing up here after all these years…" (looking like you haven't aged at all and babbling about other worlds!) "But, maybe we should stop this for now." He put a hand to his forehead, he was beginning to feel a little dizzy.

"You really don't believe me, do you? And not just about Oz, about all of it."

He didn't know what to say to that. She didn't have the same bitter expression he remembered being terrified of as a child. She seemed a lot sadder. At that moment, however, their meeting was interrupted by the intrusion of one dark-haired accountant and an exhausted-looking Bonham.

"I'm sorry, My Lord, I told him you were having an important meeting, but he's all excited about some new special sale at the supermarket or something."

"My Lord! We're working thieves! We don't have time for leisurely conversations! You should be out stealing—"the stingy bug stopped suddenly, staring at Lady Gloria with a confused expression. He looked from her, to Dorian, to her again. "Earl…I didn't know you had a sister!"

Dorian suppressed a groan. "James, this is not my sister, this is my mother, Lady Gloria."

By now, Bonham was also staring at her in disbelief. "My, the years sure have been good to, my lady."

"What were you just talking about? A thief?" she turned to Dorian. "No, no! You should be a good, respectable citizen! A charitable philanthropist, like me, Glinda the Good Witch of the North."

"…the Good Witch of the...maybe you should lie down for a while, Mother."

"What's wrong with her?" James whispered confidentially.

"I don't know. She's convinced she's from another planet," Dorian whispered back.

"I hear you whispering!" she shouted indignantly. "Well, I'd appreciate it if you at least didn't discuss this horrible thievery business in my presence!"

"But we have to discuss thievery, or else one of us will slip and tell Lord Gloria that the reason the Major hasn't been taking any missions for NATO lately is that…" the tiny accountant trailed off as Bonham glared at him, looking at Dorian nervously. "Ah he he…nothing."

Dorian raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean 'the reason the Major hasn't been taking any assignments for NATO lately….' You KNOW the reason and you've been keeping it from me?"

"Who is 'the Major?'" Lady Gloria inquired, looking curiously from her son to the obviously flustered James and Bonham and back again.

"Oh…it's complicated, My Lady," Bonham sighed. "Terribly complicated. The truth is, I don't even fully understand it."

"The Major is a terrible, horrible, nasty, EVIL MANIAC!" James screeched. "He's cruel and scary and all he cares about are his machines and his guns and his missions! He's mean and cold and he hates everyone! I was in the hospital because of that horrible jerk!"

"Now, now, James, he's not _that _bad," Bonham chided.

"Will you all just shut up and tell me what he's doing?" Dorian shouted. "Why have you been keeping it a secret from me?"

"Dorian, don't get so upset…" Glinda said, "I still don't understand what's going on."

"Oh alright, I'll be the one to tell him," Bonham sighed heavily. "My Lord…I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, I truly am, but…the Major's become engaged to some lady from an old German family. Rumour has it the Major's old man was trying to get the two of them together for the past few years, and he finally just gave in. They're getting married next week."

For a long moment, everyone was silent. Bonham, James, and the rest of the Earl's staff who had gathered quietly in the doorways while the argument had risen, all stood deathly quiet, waiting for their lord's response.

Dorian looked blank, for a long moment. "I…I see," he said quietly. He sat down, and his eyes stared forwards although they didn't seem to be looking at anything at all. "I see," he said again.

Glinda stood beside him, she had clasped a hand over her chest. After a moment, Dorian stood and wavered slightly, as though walking in a dream. He moved through the crowd of thieves silently, as though he didn't see them at all, and vanished up the stairs. "He—he loves him, doesn't he? This… 'Major' person?"

It was Bonham who quietly took her aside and, perhaps because he thought as Lord Gloria's mother she had a right to know, or perhaps because now that it was so finally over it couldn't matter anymore if she knew, he told her about how Dorian, under his guise as Eroica, the Famous Art Thief, and Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach of NATO Intelligence had first met, and how they had absolutely hated each other, but then through annoying and frustrating the tightly wound officer Eroica had then fallen in love with him, and chased him all across the globe on many dangerous Intelligence missions, sometimes hindering, sometimes helping, always enjoying the chance, however dangerous, of being with the Major, even though the German continued to hate him and showed nothing but disdain and repulsion for his advances.

Once he had finished, Lady Gloria sat down shakily and took the cup of tea Jones offered to her. "Oh, I see," was all she said for several minutes. "Well then, I suppose we'll have to stop this wedding, won't we Mister Bonham?"

Mister Bonham turned quiet pale, and looked up at Eroica's mother in nothing less than abject terror and astonishment. "Stop Major Eberbach's wedding? You can't possibly be serious! Lady Gloria—?"

**Continued in Chapter Two: Something Unearthly**


	2. Chapter 2: Something Unearthly

**Chapter Two: Something Unearthly**

"_I heard his mom died pretty much right after she gave birth. His dad brought him up, but that's the problem. His dad new how to drive a tank and command a battalion. Sure didn't know how to raise a kid, though. He didn't raise a kid. He raised a _tank_."_

_--From Eroica with Love: Vacation Orders_

The ceremony was to be tomorrow.

It was a completely idiotic waste of time, Major Eberbach thought, his frown deepening and his glare intensifying at the blundering fools who were mangling his proud ancestral home into some sort of monstrosity he had been told was suitable for weddings.

The entire ordeal seemed inane. There were oddly shaped bunches of cloth draped all over the walls, a thoroughly sickening amount of flowers everywhere, and the skull-splintering clashes of furniture being moved and dragged around the old stone castle—long banquet tables, hundreds of chairs…

The Major clenched his fists tightly and tried to resist the urge to shout obscenities at everyone around him. At least he had finally gotten rid of that obnoxious Shenshen who had spent the last half hour clinging to his arm—the very thought made his skin crawl—giggling that inane high-pitched laugh of hers at everything.

"You shouldn't let your emotions show so easily on your face," his father reprimanded him sharply. "Everyone can tell you're not enjoying this."

"Am I supposed to be? This entire thing seems like nothing more than a grandiose waste of time," Klaus said in a tone just short of snapping. He lit a cigarette and continued scowling at the help.

He noticed, out of the corner of his eyes, that the old man seemed tired for the first time that Klaus could remember. The powerful and authoritative tank commander he remembered from his youth was gone, replaced with a weary octogenarian with deep lines etched into his pale face, thin white hair, and gradually darkening eyes.

But his pose and gait were as strong and formal as ever. He looked at his son with a sort of exasperation, but, surprisingly, he refrained from making any further comment.

Despite himself, Klaus was almost tempted to turn to his father and ask what the matter was…but at that moment one of the scores of vases resting on narrow columns (what idiot thought that would be a good idea, anyways?) tipped over, exploding on the cold stone floor of the Schloss Eberbach in a burst of jagged pieces of porcelain, roses, and water.

Roses.

If it had been up to him there wouldn't have been any of that accursed weed! But then, if it had been up to him there wouldn't have been any bothersome flowers _period_. Not to mention the revolting amounts of frills and ribbons and…things he couldn't find names for, but were equally offensive to the eye. His ancestors would be rolling around in their graves if they knew what was happening within the castle walls.

That God-damned bugger Eroica would probably approve of the grotesque extravagancies, he thought, grinding the cigarette into a nearby ashtray with a little more force than was necessary. Then again, _Eroica_ probably wouldn't, not considering the accompanying circumstances.

The Major was to be married, and that was something that may perhaps finally, forever, deter the damn freak's advances. And that was the only thing about that day which made the Major smile, just a little.

00000000000000000

Heinz von dem Eberbach sighed deeply. He turned to his butler, and over the years a sort of confidante and friend, Conrad Hinkel, with a weary look he could no longer fight from his eyes. "These days should not be some sort of trial of my son's patience. I don't understand. In the days before and after Henrietta and I were to be married everything was a daze of joy and happy festivities."

Hinkel led him quietly away from the crowd of planners and movers and the few guests that had arrived a day early for the ceremonies and were milling about, exploring the ancient castle's spacious rooms and displays of art Henrietta had loved, but her son scarcely acknowledged, and then, acknowledged only with disdain.

But no, the elder Eberbach reminded himself forcibly as he sat shakily in the empty parlour. Klaus was _not _Henrietta's son, and he could not allow himself to forget again. "Sir," Hinkel addressed him politely. "Perhaps your son does not feel the same way about his marriage as you did about yours."

"I don't understand," Heinz repeated wearily. "I asked him a hundred times—a million times!—about any woman he was interested in—any at all! After all my years of pointing out the virtues of Jack's daughter to him, I thought he had finally opened his eyes to her and grown to love her himself, but these last few days…"

"Sir," there was a brisk knock at the door and another of the butlers employed at the Schloss Eberbach—an aging man with white hair—bowed and entered. "There is a guest here to see you, Sir. An hysterical British woman is demanding to come in at once—"

"Out of my way!" an almost squeaky voice demanded, and a woman with a mass of blonde curls all but _shoved_ the butler aside and stormed into the parlour. "Are you Commander Heinz von dem Eberbach?"

"Ah—yes—what can I…?"

"Oh! Good. I'm Glinda the—um, I'm the Countess of Gloria," she spoke in a rush of words, so that he could barely keep up, constantly fluttering her gloved hands about in front of her. A few strings of diamonds glittered around her neck, and her dress was something extraordinary—a mass of blue silk gowns.

"Are you a friend of the bride's?" he asked, dumfounded.

"What? No," she laughed, waving a hand at him that glittered with jewellery. She sat in the chair across from him. "Actually, I'm here because—because—because—ha ha ha, well, actually it's—"

"It's…?"

"Mother!" Dorian Red Gloria stepped into the room, shaking his head in exasperation. "In God's name what are you _doing_?"

"Mother…?" Heinz raised an eyebrow inquisitively at the young woman sitting across from him.

"Ah—a ha—mother—uh, sister—no—I think I'm m—more of an _aunt_, really…" a nervous laugh. "We—ell—"

"I'm sorry, we were just leaving—" Dorian started.

"No we were not!" the Countess Gloria said, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

"We weren't?"

"No, of course not! That's what I was going to….we need to stay for the ceremony!" she declared suddenly, giving her—companion—a stern look.

"Ceremony?" Heinz began. "You mean my son's marriage…? But I don't even know who you are!"

At that moment, the door to the parlour flew open with a clattering bang that made the Countess jump. All eyes turned to see Klaus standing in the doorway, and the Major's eyes widened in absolute disbelief. "YOU! What in bloody hell are YOU doing here, you degenerate fop!" he shouted at Dorian.

"Ah, you know one another, then…" Heinz said. "I see, than of course you are invited to the—"

"You—DAMN—bugger! What the hell are you doing here! It's not bad enough that you have to get in the way of my missions, you're actually—"

"Hey! You can't talk to my son that way!" the Countess rose to her feet.

"Your son?"

"Ah—my sister gets a little confused sometimes…" Dorian smiled with obvious unease. "We should _really _be going—"

"No! You're going to stay—" the Countess shoved the Earl into one of the seats with a rather surprising strength. "And I'm going to stay—" she sat back herself, "And we're all going to stay!" she ended with a sort of tone, as though daring anyone to object to her.

The Major was staring at them both as though he was stunned—momentarily—Heinz was simply very, very confused. The two butlers hovered uneasily along the fringes, exchanging worried glances. Klaus looked like he was angry enough to explode—when the door opened yet _again_, and a skinny brunette in a tight taffeta dress sauntered in. "Oh Klaus, there you are!" odd giggling, "I was looking _everywhere _for you! Absolutely everywhere! June teased me, saying you snuck back to work when I wasn't looking! This man does love his job so much!"

The Major's eyebrow twitched, and Dorian and Glinda exchanged glances, it seemed clear to them that Klaus was trying _very _hard to control his anger. Heinz was either oblivious to this, or ignoring it, as he clapped his hands together and rose. "Ah, Miss Shenshen, there you are!" he turned to the butlers. "Please prepare two of the guest rooms for Countess Gloria and her…"

"Nephew."

"Brother."

The Major's eyes darted between them accusingly and brimming with suspicion, as his fiancé dragged him towards the connecting dining room. _We'll finish this later,_ was all-too clearly written on his face.

"Ah, this way, Countess, Earl," Hinkel said gently.

Glinda turned to her son and sighed. "Well, he's cheery fellow, isn't he?"

"Remind me _why _we're here again?" he hissed under his breath as they followed the poor, flustered butler.

"You don't think it's a good idea?" she asked, wide eyed. "I think it just might be the best idea I ever had!"

00000000000000000

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Dorian groaned, sitting on the edge of the guestroom bed. His mother was pacing, with a thoughtful expression. Although he wasn't sure _how _much thought she had actually put into this. In fact, Dorian wasn't even sure what she intended to do. She'd practically vanished from Castle Gloria, and a very upset Bonham had nervously explained that she had taken off for Germany—and he had found her _here_.

Meddling.

"Oh, come off it, what's the harm in a bit of mischief now and then?" she demanded petulantly.

"It's his bloody _wedding_!" Dorian exclaimed in exasperation.

"And you don't want him to have it, remember?"

"Well what exactly do you mean to DO?"

"And I mean _please_, as though anyone could be _happy _with that giggling tart…Did you know I went to school with a girl named Shenshen? Pretty coincidence, I say."

"I still don't understand why you're here," he groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"I don't know…I could, um, make the wedding cake explode or something," she offered, procuring a long silver and blue crystal wand from her handbag.

"You've got to be kidding me. Would you just forget the whole… 'witch' thing, Mum, please?"

"You don't believe me, do you?" Glinda asked, turning and placing her hands on her hips. "Well how do you explain the fact that I haven't aged since you last saw me, huh? And besides, what was that 'my sister gets confused sometimes' stuff about! You're trying to make me look like a bloody idiot!"

"Well what was I supposed to say! 'Excuse me Sir, but my poor old mother is convinced that she's a witch from another planet'?"

"I…ugh! You're impossible! I'm going back to my room, we'll have to discuss this in the morning. Heinz said the ceremony wasn't going to start until later on, anyways."

He didn't care. He really didn't want to be plotting anything with his mentally deranged mother.

An indignant huff and toss of her golden curls later, Glinda the "Good Witch" disappeared into the hallways of the Schloss Eberbach…

The Schloss! Good God, he still couldn't believe he was actually _here _and that Klaus hadn't hunted him down and strangled him already. Maybe the Major was just distracted with his fiancé…but thinking about _that _gave Dorian the creeps, so he pushed himself off the bed and followed his mother out the door.

There was no way he was going to get a wink of sleep, not on _this _night.

But when he stepped out into the hallway, she had already gone. He sighed and leaned back against the closed door. The entire castle seemed shrouded in a thick veil of silence. He was left alone with his thoughts, and right then he really didn't want them because they were confusing and weird.

All these years he had harboured a deep resentment for the woman who had abandoned him at the age of fourteen, and now she was honestly trying to help him—even if she was a bit of a barmy nutter—and he didn't know what to think anymore.

He also didn't know what to do about Klaus' wedding. Part of him just wanted to kill that annoying Shenshen, really kill her, but the other part of his mind hesitated—maybe it wasn't right to destroy this for the Major. Maybe he should just—keep a stiff upper lip and give up on him for good.

Except that he'd never given up on anything he'd really wanted! And the Major was the first man he'd ever _really _felt so in love with!

"Oh no, what do I _do_?" he sighed, pressing his hands over his eyelids. "What do I do? What do I—"

Then, through the silence, he heard a strange sort of…singing? He couldn't tell. It was a sound so faint and muffled that…

But it called to him.

It resonated right through everything, fitting its way straight into his mind and dragging him forwards. He hadn't even noticed that he'd walked down the length of the hall until his hand gripped the staircase banister.

It wasn't really like singing. Wasn't like 'music' in the conventional sense of the word, the Earl thought, his feet slowly moving up the stairs. It was something…something like a whole other _sense_, something deep and stirring and powerful. Something _resonating_, and tangible. He felt it along the tips of his fingers, and running down his spine.

It was something…unearthly.

The attic was very old. It hadn't been cleaned in a long time either, Dorian noticed. A thick layer of grey-white dust covered everything. Large cumbersome boxes were stacked all over the place, and heavy white sheets were draped over old pieces of furniture, and paintings…

His curiosity whispered in the back of his mind, and he wanted to examine everything, see what fabulous treasures that philistine Klaus had left rotting up here, but at the same time, his feet just kept walking and walking past all of it. Towards…towards…

Then he stood before a large rectangular shape, taller than a man, and flat, covered by a heavy tarp. "Has to be a mirror, I expect…" he swallowed, the backs of his hands were tingling.

Why did it have to be a mirror? Surely a canvas would have similar dimensions. But he just knew it—he just _knew _it!

Very faintly he wondered what he was doing up here, in the dirty old attic, drawing the covering off of this antique piece of furniture, and then it was too late for wondering any more. The heavy sheet fell to the ground in billowing mounds, and the ancient mirror was unveiled.

He didn't see the frame, although it was probably something gilded and heavy and ornate. He didn't see any of the attic, any longer, either. He only saw the smooth, perfect, looking-glass. Only it wasn't smooth any longer, it was melting.

Melting.

Melting.

The _mirror _was melting!

He tried to back away, but at the same time, he couldn't help raising a hand to touch this incredible, wondrous sight. It was just so unearthly, it enthralled him. And what had been melting and shifting like liquid, was becoming mist, and his hands past through it effortlessly.

And then Dorian wasn't standing in the old attic any longer. He was standing in a castle, but it wasn't Klaus' castle, it wasn't the Schloss Eberbach any longer.

A cold chill ran down the length of his spine. The walls were black grimy stones. The floor was covered in a thick layer of filth, and there were tables all about him cluttered with cruel looking instruments—vials of bubbling liquids, and books, books and pieces of parchment everywhere—ancient, crumbling, filled with archaic writing and diagrams and symbols. The place was lit by a mess of _candles_, dripping long rivers of wax all over the tables and floor.

There were windows, narrow slits like the sort archers could use to shoot arrows from in times of a siege, but all they revealed was the thick blackness of night. His breath shaking, Dorian stumbled to the wall, and leaned against it dizzily.

He had this horrible feeling. "I—I don't think I'm in Germany anymore…"

Something moved. Something _bumped _into the table. The old rotten wood shook, and all the glass vials and things clattered about. Dorian felt his heart beating wildly in his chest. Something was scrambling about in the shadows. Something smaller than a person, but sure as hell bigger than a mouse.

And suddenly, it was nearly on top of him, palely illuminated by the flickering light of the candles. At first, he thought it was some sort of hideous monster and only years and years of training as a thief had kept him from screaming, because it _was _hideous. Like some sort of horribly deformed shrunken hairy person.

Then, catching his breath, his brain kicked back into gear and he realized, _monkey, just a monkey, sure you don't see one everyday, 'specially not creepin' about in the shadows of some crazy alternate mirror-world bangin' into tables full of weird occult crap but still, a monkey's just a monkey…okay, so it's got wings._

Wings. Wings. The monkey had honest-to-God WINGS. Fucking. Wings. On a damn. Monkey! He dug his fingernails into the stone wall behind him until it _hurt_, and stared at the bizarre creature with wide eyes.

It stared back.

He felt like his eyes were going to fall out of his head. His knees trembled. What the HELL was going on?

The monkey tilted its head a little and stared at him. The wings ruffled. Finally, it scratched its head and skittered back into the darkness.

Dorian let out the deep breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding in. The mirror was still there, it was the only thing in the room that _hadn't _changed. It was all he could do at this point to reach shakily towards it and hope and pray this was just some weird, horrible dream and that he would wake up and forget it. Just wake up and forget it. Just wake—

The world turned hazy and misty around him, and seemed to convolute—turn in on itself and flip over—and then he was sprawling on the ground, in the attic of the Schloss, breathing like he'd just been running for his life, and tangled in the sheet that had once hung over the looking-glass.

When he could stand again he left the attic as quickly as he could. He did not look at the mirror. But strangely. Horribly, strangely. He had the oddest sensation, that _it _was looking at _him_.

00000000000000000

"I'm telling you there was a—a—a MONKEY in the mirror!"

Klaus paused outside the door to the dining room. It was first thing in the morning. He _wanted _his Nescafe, damn it! But the reminder that that degenerate pervert was infesting his estates, seemingly under the consent of his father, made him lose his appetite. And what was that idiot rambling about now? Had he gone _insane_ as well as perverted?

The Countess and the butler were both trying to calm him down. "Honey, I don't understand what you're—"

"In the mirror! The mirror upstairs! There is—there was this—thing! This THING! Like a monkey—only—you know—with wings!"

Then, to his surprise, he heard the voice of his father: "The…the old mirror, you say? The old one in the attic?"

Through the crack of the slightly adjourned door, the Major saw the Countess turn to face his father, a deeply concerned expression on her face—_well, she should be concerned if her relation's seeing bloody winged monkeys. _

"Dorian, what were you _doing _in the attic?" she asked.

The thief looked genuinely surprised at this. Then a bit puzzled. "I…well I don't know! Isn't that odd? I just…"

Finally, Klaus had heard enough. He marched into the dining room, glared at the mess off idiots who were wasting his time with babble about mirror-monkeys and drinking _his _Nescafe. "I'll tell you what he was doing up there! Stealing something, most likely."

Heinz looked rather appalled. "How can you be so rude to our guest? And I thought he was a friend of yours, too."

"He's no friend of mine!" the Major sneered. "It's beyond me what he thinks he's doing here in the first place—"

"Alright, alright, I want to hear more about this mirror," his father said dismissively, turning back to the Earl.

Klaus stared at his father, the former tank commander, in absolute shock. He had no idea how to respond, so he simply sat down. Lord Gloria was trying to tell his story again.

"Well, like I told you…I was in the attic, right? I don't—I don't know _why_, I just found myself up there. It was like something was calling to me. Except there weren't any words…it just…it just _felt _right, like I should go up there—"

The Countess and his father exchanged equally concerned glances, almost like they knew what the thief was babbling on about. Or maybe they were just both concerned for his mental health. Whatever.

"And—and there was this mirror—a great big old one, behind a sheet, and—"

"Oh dear God…" Heinz breathed. "It can't be, after all this time… You didn't look at it, did you!"

"And when I touched it, the surface got all—I don't know, misty—"

"You have one!" the Countess gasped, leaping out of her seat, her hands squarely on the table, leaning over his father. "Heinz Eberbach, you _have _one!"

"And then—and then I wasn't here anymore I was—I was somewhere else! Somewhere dark. There were these tables and candles and things—and this creature—leapt out at me—"

"You have a one of the Magic Mirrors, Herr Eberbach? How did _you _get one! I thought there were only the two in existence—the ones my husband used!"

"You _know _about them?" Heinz asked, gasping in surprise. "You know the other world to which they lead?"

"What in God's name are you all babbling on about?" Klaus snapped, glaring at the lot of them.

The Countess and his father once again exchanged long glances. Then the senior Eberbach slowly rose. He seemed to have grown considerably paler. He was almost trembling, and Klaus couldn't remember ever seeing the commander tremble.

"I—Excuse me, there's something I must do."

00000000000000000

The aged Heinz von dem Eberbach found himself staring into the black depths of the ancient mirror. It had been in the family for generations, going back to the time of Tyrian Persimmon, a thing to which many vile rumours were attached. Some said it was haunted, others cursed. He had thought such things foolish nonsense. After all, he had been a soldier, a commander, he had faced death countless times, watched friends and family ripped to pieces before his own eyes.

But he had not been able to confront _this_—this unearthly thing. This mirror that was not a mirror, but a portal, a key. He had stored it away up in the attic and forbidden even the servants from entering to clean it. He had not looked at it for years—not since the birth of his son.

The mirror.

_She _had come through the accursed mirror! And now, standing before it, he felt his entire body trembling violently. He raised a hand shakily. He could not—he never had been able to—take that one step. Move through the solid glass. But he could do this much. Now that he knew it was still possible. Now that he had been reminded of its immense power.

He pressed the thin folded sheet of paper up to the foggy pane, and watched it slide through the mist, and disappear.

_I know we haven't seen each other in years. But your son is getting married today. I thought perhaps you should know._

_--Heinz _

**To be continued in Chapter Three: Stranger in the Wide-Brimmed Hat**


	3. Chapter 3: Day of the Wedding

**Chapter Three: Stranger in the Wide-Brimmed Hat**

"_In the middle of the night the cook disappeared. There was consternation among all except Elphie, who didn't care." _

_--Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West_

"_I pity the community of the afterlife when they're asked to welcome _you _in. What a sour apple you always are." _

_--Sarima to Elphaba_

_(Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)_

It was Chistery who brought the scrap of paper to her. He was even more agitated than usual, sniffing around the old mirror she had set up in part of the tower, pawing at it, and rustling his wings. He was still only talking in the nonsense gibberish noises that Sarima's children had been trying to force out of him when they had been living in the castle-fortress of Kiamo Ko.

When they had been living.

But it was best not to dwell on the past, and the things that she could not change. She already knew that Sarima and her sons were dead. Slaughtered like animals and thrown into a filthy pit somewhere. She knew that Sarmia's daughter was alive, but kept as a prisoner by the Wizard, ruined physically and mentally, probably beyond all repair.

The Witch had failed to save anyone who meant anything to her. Her father, Frex, her sister, poor damaged Nessarose, her lover, Fiyero, her mentor, Doctor Dillamond, even her rival, Sarima.

Even the children.

All that she had left where Chistery, and the rest of her experimental winged-monkeys, and the Bees, and the Wolves.

So perhaps it was no surprise, given her own agitated and restless state, having just come back from Munchkinland to learn that a house had fallen on her sister (much to the rejoicing of those she had ruled and had un-lovingly nicknamed her 'the Wicked Witch of the East') and that Galinda—_Glinda_—had taken it upon herself to give the one thing remaining of her sister, and the symbol of her father's love, away to some drippy little farm girl.

At the same time, the Wizard had taunted her by displaying Sarima's daughter, a crippled slave, and threatening her. She knew of the Wizard's armies settled in the town of Red Winhill near Kiamo Ko, watching her every move.

She, who was of course the only one left to be a threat to the Wizard, especially now that Nessarose, who for all her tyrannical and fanatical faults was still a force against him—was dead.

Squashed.

Her poor, squashed cripple of a sister.

Pretty, dainty, perfect, Nessarose. Her father's favourite. Everyone's favourite. Saintly Nessarose. Devoted Nessarose.

Tyrannical Nessarose.

She saw her sister leaning—sinister, somehow, to see that crippled body, that armless form, leaning with perfect balance, all thanks to the enchantments Glinda had put on those special slippers—over the old woman's axe, casting a spell that would hack of the woodman's limbs off one by one so that he could never marry her daughter.

She saw her sister rounding up the Animals—creatures who were no less intelligent than Humans, capable of eloquent speech and philosophical thought and reason—like chattel, even lower than slaves, and trading with them, bargaining with them.

The Wicked Witch of the East.

The Wicked _Bitch _of the East, as she had prophesized to Fiyero one night long ago.

"I don't think she suffered," Glinda had told her. Glinda, who was always sticking her little powdered nose where it didn't belong. "It happened so awfully fast."

But there was no time to dwell on misfortune. So she buried the hurt deep within her, and continued working on the monkeys. They were making progress, the creatures had taken much better to flying than they had to speech, at least.

The Wizard's forces were going to come after her one day. One day soon. He wanted the book and the mirror, the two keys to the Other World that she had in her possession. To keys that she could not part with, not even for Sarima's daughter.

So perhaps it was no surprise that in this agitated, worried, apprehensive state, that the Witch was not in the best of moods to care about some mouldy scrap of paper that Chistrey kept waving in front of her, while tugging on her black shift and talking in its garbled squawking kind of voice. "Witch. Wetch. Which. Watch. Wretch. Wecks. Warcks…"

Her head was throbbing by this point as she swatted Chistrey to the side with the end of her broom. "Out! Out you idiot, can't you see I'm working!"

And she was working, pouring over her books and the herbs and vials of potions. She didn't know what she was trying to make anymore. For a moment, it all felt like too much. She had that annoying brat Liir, who was possibly her child or possibly not her child underfoot, not helping matters any by his constant infatuation with the soldiers positioned at Red Winmill, and Nanny, who was going a little soft in the head as she neared her centennial.

And she had her Bees, and her Wolves, and flying monkeys.

And the ghost of Sarima, blaming her for the death of her husband, and now the deaths of her sisters and her children, as well.

"Out!" she growled, but the monkey pushed the piece of paper into her hand clumsily, making strange hurried gestures that did seem a bit alarming.

In any case, she finally examined the paper.

The letters swirled and blurred and were difficult to make out, like all writing that came from the Other World. Like the writing in the Grimmerie, it was difficult to make out and took several minutes by candlelight for her to finally decipher it.

When she had, she sat in an old creaking wooden chair and stared at the tiny sheet utterly dumbfounded. She hadn't been sure she had _had _another child. As with Liir, she had grown unnaturally ill as—what she now confirmed had been pregnancy—had matured and those months were lost in a feverish haze of illness. Nanny had—perhaps fearing her increasingly unpredictable temper—only told her about the incident in the vaguest of ways.

Not that she had ever once asked for more details. The thought of children was as unappealing to her as it had ever been, and she slammed her hand down on the table, causing the vials to clatter and clank. She didn't need this now. She hadn't been through the damned mirror in two or three years. She had more important things to think about.

She had forgotten about the time differences and frankly not cared. She certainly didn't care about this. Not now. Not with a bloody war perched quite literally on her doorstep. Not with the fate of the Animals, and who knew how many others, hinged on her and her fight against the mad dictatorship of Oz and unification.

No, she certainly didn't care if some offshoot of hers was getting married. Especially not if he was a blundering idiot fool like Liir.

Why should she care?

No, no, she wasn't even the least bit curious.

Not the least.

"Where are you going now?" Nanny asked, as she grabbed her wide-brimmed black hat and heavy shawl, and the troublesome broom. "Are you just going to leave me and Liir all alone here, with those soldiers just waiting for an easy opportunity to ransack the place?"

"You're loosing your mind, Nanny. They already ransacked the place and killed everyone who was living here, and they already decided one feeble old crone and one annoying brat weren't worth the bother. Besides, I go out every night."

"Yes, and you put yourself in a good bit of danger, spying on those troops and sneaking around among the enemy lines. Do I have to remind you that your mother was a high born noble woman—"

"The Eminent Thropp, and no, not really," the Witch said, her face was cold and utterly without expression, so there was no way of knowing how she felt about her family's nobility, having seen her younger sister Nessrose as ruler and deciding quite against all the useless extravagance and annoying foppery for herself.

She could have gone to Munchkinland and taken it over for herself now that Nessarose was dead.

She could have. Just to annoy the Wizard.

But her work was in the Vinkus, at Kiamo Ko. And the old, now abandoned fortress, dark and dank and on the verge of being under siege, really seemed to suite her a lot better than the pomp and prettiness of Colwen Grounds in Munchkinland.

"But in any case, I'm not working tonight," she spoke now with something of a grimace, throwing the shawl about her shoulders. "Although that would probably be considerably more pleasant."

00000000000000000

Getting shot at by the KGB would have been considerably more pleasant. That was the Major's general opinion of the ceremony. Shenshen was wearing the most sickeningly elaborate dress he had ever seen in his life. It was a bit of a marvel that she could stand in that, let alone walk down the aisle. Even that bloody wanker Eroica would have had more taste than that.

Alright. That was not an acceptable thought. Klaus shuddered, and wished he could smoke because he really needed that comforting rush of nicotine at the moment, convinced that ninety-percent of his general discomfort _must _be the result of the presence of that relentless fop and his—relation—who was probably the only person on the face of the planet who dressed as bizarrely as the Earl did. Damn Glorias.

They were sitting somewhere near the back, he vaguely supposed—

--sixth row, on the left—

The Earl was wearing one of his ridiculous cream-coloured suits, and the Countess a rather voluminous blue gown that almost looked like a bunch of ballerina skirts mashed together. Why the hell were they there, anyways? He was getting a headache just thinking about it! And he _really _wanted that cigarette…

Shenshen was walking down the aisle with her father, who was an old friend of his father. He couldn't _really _tell, what with the veil, but for some reason he just fancied she was smirking. Not smiling, mind you. But smirking.

He really _couldn't _understand women.

The vows were passed in a sort of blur, before the aged priest spoke the words the Major had been dreading: "If there are any here who object to this union, let them speak now or forever hold their peace."

He had been waiting through the entire ceremony in a sort of anxiety, expecting that decadent pervert Eroica do something horrendous and humiliating when it came to that line—something tasteless and melodramatic, like making a big speech about how much he loved him, and damn it, but Klaus wouldn't even be able to punch him, not in the middle of the ceremony!

But…

But Eroica didn't say anything.

He waited. Listening hard. Hardly able to believe the perfect silence of the audience and not knowing at all why that

somehow

disappointed some small part of him.

But then something happened which ended up embarrassing both the Major _and _the Earl even more so than the scene that he had been dreading.

The Earl's _mother_ rose, and began objecting!

Her high-pitched and rather shrill voice shot through the air, echoing off the castle walls.

"_I _object! How can you marry her—who is she anyways? What about my SON! Hasn't he proven his feelings for you! Hasn't he RISKED HIS LIFE for you! Are you BLIND!"

The Major stared with round eyes in utter disbelief. She was even worse than the money-bug, and, by the looks of things this wasn't a combined effort—Eroica looked positively mortified, which would have been _highly _amusing if it had been at any other time and place.

Then, before the gaping crowd, because at the moment everyone was too shocked to say anything in response, the Countess of Gloria pulled out a long silver—well for God's sake it looked like a bloody magic wand!—and pointed it squarely at the wedding cake.

And of course, nothing happened.

The Major wasn't sure whether to yell or laugh. Oh, he _was_ outraged, that was for certain, but he had never been quite _so _outraged at anything so _truly _bizarre and _stupid _in his entire life, so for the moment, he just stood there, staring at the blonde countess, along with everyone else in the castle.

And then, there was a sort of GURGLE—THUD—POP like a giant balloon bursting, and Klaus felt something soft whack the back of his tuxedo jacket. A second later, the entrails of what had once been a very expensive and very large (wasn't his idea) wedding cake rained down on all of the assembled wedding guests—most of it splattering himself, the priest, and his bride.

Shenshen shrieked—louder than he had heard people who were being shot scream!—and began wavering back and forth like she would fall over or faint or something. He largely ignored her. Everyone was sputtering out bits of icing and—whatever other poisons those despicable sweet things were made of—and batting it off of their expensive formal dresses and suits. It hung in great globs from their hair and streaked their faces.

Klaus reached up a tentative hand and felt the gooey stuff clinging to his shoulder and cringed. "Alright. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"

"How did you DO THAT?" Eroica was shrieking at the same time, which the Major had to admit, surprised him, since he had assumed the damned thief was the one plotting everything.

It was also a very good question. How had she done it? Explosives in the pastry—hell, maybe. Could the KGB be involved? Anything was possible! And here he didn't have his magnum! Damn it! In a split second, the Major spun around to the table and grabbed the knife that was meant for cutting the now-exploded wedding cake.

"Whose involved! What the fuck is this! Answer me!"

An immense bang echoed through the castle then, as the great doors to the main hall swung open, then slammed shut again, with an echoing crash that had guests crying out in alarming, leaping to their feet if they weren't standing already, and spinning to look at the entrance.

"Oh, don't be upset by _that_," a voice that was loud, echoing off the high stone walls, spoke. A figure appeared slowly out of the dark shadows by the tall doors. A woman, or so it appeared, but she was completely covered from head to foot, not a bit of skin showing anywhere.

She wore what appeared to be a few layers of thick black skirts that ran almost all the way to the floor, and heavy worn black army boots. A thick shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, and an incredibly wide-brimmed black hat covered her head and cast her face into shadow, it rose to a crooked point at the top like a—like a witch.

"Glinda only ever was good at spells like that—signing a hundred invitations in one go, or making my sandwich explode in my face. You know, that sort of thing."

From the corner of his eye, Klaus saw the Countess Gloria gasp and stand up, backing into the seats of the people in front of her. But his gaze was fixed firmly on the newcomer. Everything that had happened thus far was too incredibly stupid to be believed. He wanted an explanation. And so he waited.

The cloaked figure gestured slowly with one gloved hand. "It's all just effects, nothing to worry about. There's nothing ontologically or philosophically interesting about magic."

"Oh how can you say that even now, Elphie!" the Countess shouted. "Do you even know what they're calling _you_ now?"

"Do you know what I'm calling myself, Glinda?" the stranger snapped. "I call MYSELF a witch now! The Wicked Witch of the West, it has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Afterall, Nessarose got to be the Wicked Witch of the East. If people are going to call you a lunatic anyways, why not?"

"But you're not wicked!"

"How do you know? It's been a long time."

The Countess looked genuinely worried, scared, she bit her lower lip, eyes large and shining. "Oh, Elphie…"

"But I'm not here to deal with you!" the—Witch, or whoever she was—snapped. "I don't even know what you're doing here!"

"What I'm doing here—I—"

But the Witch was striding forwards now, pushing the few guests who were willing to stand in her path out of the way as easily as someone brushing aside bothersome insects. Klaus turned to his father, but the elder Eberbach had mysteriously vanished.

Before he could really contemplate the matter any, the Major heard a sort of strangled squeak from his bride, and turned back to see the Witch towering over her, and even without seeing her face, every minute gesture of her body seemed to radiate irritation.

"STOP. SNIVELLING. YOU. BRAT!"

Tears mucked with cake mixture were running down her cheeks, and one hand, with thick globs of icing sloping over it, reached towards the Major, who, out of instinct before he could stop himself, backed away from it.

The Witch groaned. "Well, this is certainly unpleasant, isn't it? I would say you make a lovely couple, but I really don't care for the way that particular shade of icing clashes with your hair."

Shenshen was, by this time, crying and hiccupping and sobbing hysterically. One of the bridesmaids called out to her in a high-pitched scream: "Oh, _Shenshen_!"

At which point the Witch's entire stance seemed to grow rigid, and her gloved hands twitched into fists. "_Shenshen_?" she repeated shrilly.

"It's just a coincidence," the Countess shouted, trying to manoeuvre her incredible gown around the chairs to make it to the Witch. "She isn't—"

"Think I don't know that?" the witch snapped. "I don't care! No Other World version of Pfannee or Shenshen is marrying _my _offspring!"

_What?_

With that, she pushed the snivelling girl out of the way with enough force to knock her off her feet and sprawling into a heap on the ground with the remains of the cake and two of her bridesmaids. She turned back to the Major. "Honestly, I really don't care about the whole 'motherhood' thing but—THAT—is just sick! I would have hoped someone with my blood in their veins would have better taste than _that_ empty-headed tart. But than, you _are _Liir's brother, I guess I can't expect miracles."

By this time, the Witch was close enough that even with the enormous brim of her hat, Klaus could see something of her face, and a chill crawled instinctively up his spine. Her skin—her flesh—was unnaturally green. Not just a tinge or a shade, like seasickness, but a pure lustrous emerald green.

"What…Who are you?" he had attempt to demand, but it came out simply as a question, the knife in his hand completely forgotten. She simply gave him a cold, dismissive, look.

"I came here to see someone, and since he doesn't seem to be here, I better be leaving. I have work to do, and no time to waste on this foolishness,"

"Elphaba!" Countess Gloria cried, finally standing before them, her mass of blonde curls somewhat dishevelled, bits of cake splattering the skirts of her dress. "I never expected to see you here—I was afraid I would never see you ever again, anywhere!" she grabbed the Witch's arm as she turned to go. "Please, Elphaba! I'm sorry! Why won't you listen to me! I called to you that day in the forecourt of Colwen Grounds—I called back to you, didn't you hear me?" she sounded desperate somehow, pleading. "Elphie, please—"

The Witch jerked her arm away sharply. "I heard you. I had nothing more to say to you, not then, not now."

"Elphie—I'm sorry!"

"That's good," said the Witch coldly, "I hope you die sorry."

And the Countess fell back, stung, but Eroica had appeared just behind her. He looked from the Witch, to the Countess in a sort of perplexity, but for once in his life, said nothing. The Major fished a great glob of icing out of his hair and hurled it to the ground in absolute disgust. "I don't know who you—either or you—think you are, but—"

"I told you, I have to go," the Witch said decisively, "now that I have, at least, put a stop to this nonsense."

She brushed past them, Glinda refused to look up. Eroica seemed utterly lost. He turned to the Major, looking too confused to have been an accomplice. "Uh…sorry and all that, I suppose."

The Major snorted. "Yeah, I bet you are,"

"Are you just going to let her go? She said she was your—your mother, didn't she?"

"She's a psychopath."

"Yeah but—"

"My mother is dead."

To his credit, the thief actually fell silent. For a moment.

Then he turned and went after her himself!

And because—well, for reasons he wasn't sure were worth articulating—Klaus went after him.

"Hey!" Lord Gloria called, catching up to the Witch and grabbing her arm. "You can't just—"

She turned part way back to look at him, and he noticed the same unearthly green skin that had made the Major's skin crawl, and it stopped the rest of the words in his throat. She stared at him, and suddenly he saw in her cold, hard yet penetrating gaze—"You really ARE Klaus' mother!"

She blinked. "Klaus? Is that his name?"

"I—yes. You didn't even know?"

"I was never keen on maternal instinct or whatever it is called," she said offhandedly. "You seem familiar. You remind me of someone. He's dead now."

By now the Countess had caught up to them, and she moved between the Witch and the doorway. "Are you really going to run off so quickly, Elphaba?" she asked, but this time, her voice was quieter, more subdued. "Even with the Wizard's soldiers just waiting for you in Red Winmill? Why go back to the Vinkus at all?"

The Witch glared at her. "You wouldn't understand, Glinda. You were always too busy with your jewels and dresses and ruby castles to appreciate the suffering you saw all around you—the wars, the rebels, the tyrants, the dictatorships, you were content with your few acts of charity a month."

"But they're going to kill you!"

The Witch's face was hard and expressionless.

"Who is going to kill you?" the Major asked. "And where is this—Vinku?"

"It's in another world—you wouldn't understand, and nor should you concern yourself with it!"

Lord Gloria, who had drifted away from them for a minute, returned, looking worried. "Well, whatever's going on, someone's called the police, I don't think we should discuss this here."

"I don't think we should discuss this at all!" snapped the Witch.

"I didn't know you had one of the mirrors, Elphie, or I would have told you about Sir Chuffrey's," the Countess said. "I thought you would scoff at it—you scoffed at your own father when he talked of other worlds!"

Suddenly, the Earl gasped.

"What is it?" the Major demanded, mostly because he wanted something to deal with that he effectively _could _deal with.

"We're not—we're in the attic," the Earl murmured.

"Don't be stupid we're in the hall—" the rest of the words caught in his throat. They were indeed standing up in the old creaking ill-lit attic of the Schloss Eberbach.

"Major—do you—uh,--_remember_—walking up to the attic?"

The German's uncomfortable silence was answer enough, and the thief shivered.

"It's the power of the Mirrors," Glinda noted. "I…"

"You're not all coming back with me," Elphaba growled.

"Oh, I don't see why we have to go back at all!" Glinda said. "In a lot of ways this world is so much nicer than Oz, Elphie, you really must give it a chance! Don't go back to the Vinkus!"

"Let go of me!"

"But I'm not—"

They all saw the long silver tendril of crystal mist that was wrapping itself around Elphaba's upper arm. Even the two witches stared at in dumb amazement.

"Oh, Elphaba! It's got me too!" Glinda cried a moment later, noticing the mirror wrapping itself around her waist. "What is it? It's never done this before! Elphie!"

Klaus felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as he watched the strange mist encircle the two women. And then Eroica cried out in surprise as the mist twisted around his ankle, as well! The Witch and the Countess were already vanishing, as Eroica slid to the floor.

The Major was simply too stunned to do anything, not that he was certain there was anything he _could_ do.

And a second later all three of them had vanished.

**To be continued in Chapter Four: The Opposite Direction**


	4. Chapter 4: The Opposite Direction

**Chapter Four: The Opposite Direction**

"_Well," said the Head, "I will give you my answer. You have no right to expect me to send you back to Kansas_ _unless you do something for me in return…If you wish me to use my powers to send you home again you must do something for me first. Help me and I will help you."_

"_What must I do?" the girl asked._

"_Kill the wicked Witch of the West," answered Oz._

_--L. Frank Baum_

_(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)_

Shenshen was crying hysterically when the Major stumbled downstairs, back to the castle's great hall. He barely heard her. After fumbling for a cigarette, he leaned against the stone wall and gazed into space. His mind was reeling over everything he had just heard and seen—from his wedding cake exploding, to the green-skinned woman, to the disappearance of all three troublemakers—the green-skinned intruder, the Countess, and that damn bugger Eroica.

Another part of his mind was insisting that what had just transpired was impossible—"Ludicrous!" he muttered, lighting his second cigarette. Then he started to laugh—the sound grating and ugly, but he couldn't stop himself. He should be overjoyed at the thought of the conniving pervert vanishing off the face of the planet, not to mention those obviously insane women. But it was just so incredibly…

"Stupid! An enchanted mirror—that's just so God-damn stupid!" he laughed. Then he made himself stop, taking a deep drag off his third—or was it fourth?—cigarette. He was startled when his father's hand grasped his shoulder.

"Come with me," the senior Eberbach stated in a low voice. "We need to talk."

00000000000000000

The gardens outside the Schloss Eberbach were cold and grey beneath the overcast sky. Thunder rumbled distantly. His father's face was pale and somehow even older than it had seemed the last time Klaus had looked at him. _Really _looked at him.

But Klaus could not quite bring himself to think 'my father looks scared.'

"Those two women…" Klaus began.

But Heinz shook his head, interrupting him. "Fae. I mean, Elphaba."

The Major frowned.

"Elphaba Thropp. It is coming back to me now…images, memories, one after the other…" the elder Eberbach drew his breath in a shaky sigh.

"Father…" Klaus could not believe what he was hearing. "What are you saying, exactly?"

"What do you know of your ancestor? The one in the purple portrait," Heinz asked.

"Pumpkin pants," the Major snorted. That painting, so often the object of Eroica's lusty and larcenous desires, had cost him much more trouble then he thought it was worth, cultural heritage or no! Then, because the tank commander was still regarding him soberly, he answered, "His name was Tyrian Persimmon. The histories about his life are…not entirely pleasant, Sir."

"No," his father agreed. "They aren't, are they? The mirror belonged to him. It has been in the family ever since, despite the many troublesome rumours attached to it. It was said to be both haunted and curse—"

"Nonsense," Klaus said without thinking.

But his father merely nodded. "Yes, so I thought…at first," Heinz shut his eyes and grimaced. "My wife Henrietta died well before her time," it was the first time Klaus could recall his father referring to Henrietta solely as 'my wife' and not 'your mother.' "I loved her very dearly. When she died, I was left to grieve alone—the emptiness ate away at me. I had no children, and most of my old friends had died in the war. I knew I should remarry, for the sake of preserving the Eberbach family line, but I could not bear the notion of it. Not after Henrietta…"

The Major was frowning, his cigarette forgotten in his hand. "But Sir—"

"Be quiet and just listen," his father said sternly. "I began going to the attic—the Mirror was there, even back then, not surprising considering all the superstitions regarding it. In any case—I began to be—drawn to it—without reason, like your friend was last night—"

"The Earl is _not _my friend, father, I assure you—"

"—I couldn't explain what was coming over me. I was in bad shape then, and getting worse. The war was over, and the atrocities of our people were becoming more and more apparent. As I said, I had lost most of my friends, my wife…I was probably very lonely. During the day I would convince myself that I was a soldier, I was strong…but I kept returning to the Mirror, every night.

"Then, one night _she _came out of it. It didn't really surprise me, although I suppose it should have, in retrospect. But at the time…perhaps I was really close to losing my sanity. So I just accepted it… After all, what else did I have?

"She was so different. She was so—"

"—green?" Klaus supplied dryly.

Heinz only nodded absently. "And all dressed in black, like a mourner. She looked around at the attic in a sort of disgust. 'Oh. So this is the world the Wizard comes from. I was expecting more.' When I told her I didn't know of any wizards she seemed genuinely surprised.

"She was interested in our world from a scholarly sort of perspective, I think. Like an archaeologist who has discovered the ruins of an ancient city—"

Klaus could not believe he was hearing this. And from his _father._ "You are saying that she _does _come from another world? But that is absurd!"

His father glared at him. "Have you an alternate explanation?

"She came back many times. We talked. I think she was very lonely as well. She would not discuss her personal life—only the state of her world and politics and things like that—but I think she had also lost someone very dear to her—a husband, perhaps, or at least a lover. When one has gone through something so painful oneself, you can begin to sense it in other people…"

_This is not happening. I am not hearing this. _Klaus lit another cigarette and stared at the wilting flowers. _This is not possible. This is just not possible._

"In any case…ah…this isn't easy for me to say, but I have been lying to you, Son, for thirty-three years now," there was a stretch of extremely uncomfortable silence, in which Heinz cleared his throat. "Henrietta was not your mother. She did die in childbirth, but not giving birth to you. The child died with her. That was a year before you were born."

Klaus nearly swallowed his cigarette. "Then that green-skinned woman…?" his voice sounded low and hoarse in disbelief.

Heinz laughed nervously. "I was so surprised to see you didn't even have a tinge of green in your complexion! It was a bit of luck, imagine having to explain _that _to our relatives!"

"How _did _you explain—to our relatives?" the Major frowned.

Heinz gestured impatiently. "That's hardly important now, most of those who were around back then are too old, too senile, or too dead to remember the scandal—"

"Scandal?" his head was starting to ache.

"Well what do you expect? You didn't have a mother! In the end though, I managed to get everyone sworn to secrecy…don't underestimate the power of blackmail."

"Are you joking?" but the commander's face told Klaus he wasn't.

"And now you know the truth," his father sighed. "So perhaps it was all for nothing."

_This is a dream. You're going to wake up at any second now. It has to be a dream. Because mirrors aren't gateways to other worlds, and your mother certainly wasn't a green witch! _"I don't believe any of this."

"I know you don't," Heinz said quietly. "But—wait."

"What?"

"What happened to that Englishman?"

"The Earl?" Klaus rubbed his temples tiredly. "The…mirror…There was a light, and the Countess and the Earl were pulled through the mirror with…"

"Elphaba."

Heinz sighed tiredly. "I've grown old. She hasn't. She looks just as I remember. I can't claim to have any sort of idea what the world is like on the other side of that glass—I could never bring myself to pass through its surface. It would have just been…too much. But from what Elphaba told me about her world, it isn't a very pleasant place. They seem to be in the middle of some sort of war. And she seemed to have a lot of enemies. It could be very dangerous…"

"Sir, are you suggesting that I go in there after them?" _To _save _that damn faggot who has harassed me for years! _

His father merely shrugged tiredly. "Whatever you decide to do, decide soon. As I said, Elphaba should look as old as I am…she doesn't."

_Neither did Dorian's…mother. So that _was _his mother, after all. So time is different in that other world. Great. Just fucking great. _

_He would_ _have to go save that degenerate queer. The reasons…well…He couldn't just let the other man get eaten by a magic mirror, no matter how much Klaus despised him. It just wasn't…It would be a profoundly stupid way for someone to die._

00000000000000000

"Why am I doing this again?" the Major scowled, when, twenty minutes later, he was standing in the attic (this time wearing his uniform and trench coat, instead of that stupid tuxedo, _and _with his .44 magnum in hand!).

He reached out a tentative hand and touched the filmy-glass of the mirror. His fingers melded into the surface and slipped through. A cold wave shivered down his spine, which he, being _the _Iron Klaus of NATO Intelligence, of course ignored entirely.

"Oh right, I'm supposed to be valuing human life or something like that…" besides, he couldn't return to NATO yet, having taken time off for the wedding, and at least something that might be dangerous sounded more interesting than consoling Shenshen. Or worse, rescheduling the wedding ceremonies.

He sighed, holstered the gun, and took a step towards the—

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Gateway. The mirrors were gateways to other worlds. They were _really, _really gateways to…Dorian groaned and tried to sit up, but at the moment, everything still hurt too much for that. He had been slammed into the ground and his head was still ringing. Overhead, the sky was grey and horribly muddy-looking. The ground was cold, the dead brown grass frigid and frozen under a thin layer of frost. There were hills, and a smattering of the dead skeletal remnants of burnt-black trees. Smoke was rising in thick black columns in the distance. And he was certainly "_Not in Germany_ _anymore…"_

He pulled himself to his feet, a little shakily, and brushed most of the dirt and dead grass off of his clothing. Neither the Witch nor his mother were anywhere in sight. He briefly considered calling out to them, but remembered the argument his mother had with the strange woman—"_They're trying to _kill _you in the Vinkus!"—_and decided it would probably be wiser to remain silent and try to get a better sense of his surroundings.

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"Elphaba…" she was brought back by Galinda's voice, calling to her through her thick haze of sleep. Why was her bed in the Shiz dorm room so _hard_? And _cold_? Why did she smell _smoke_? And _blood_? "Elphie, wake up! Please wake up, Elphie!" Was that _grass _beneath her fingers?

She opened her eyes. It was Glinda who was sitting on the ground next to her, not the Galinda of their university days. Shiz, and the room they had shared there so many years ago, was kingdoms away. Years away. Lifetimes away. They were—

"Where are we?" she muttered, pressing a hand tightly over her eyes. "Why aren't we at Kiamo Ko?" the castle-fortress where her Mirror was located. Any other time she had passed through the Mirror, she had emerged through its twin, safe within the castle walls. The castle that had once belonged to her lover's wife, and hostess, Sarima, and was now guarded by the local Winkie militia who believed she could still somehow save them from the Wizard's encroaching forces.

Looking at Glinda, the witch could see her blonde ex-roommate was just as confused as she was. And frightened. "We're in the Vinkus, aren't we, Elphie?" she whispered. "And the Wizard's soldiers are looking for you here!"

The Witch snatched her broom up from where it had fallen in the dirt next to her. "I know that," she also knew that the Wizard's soldiers were afraid of her, mostly stationed at the town of Red Winmill, the Wizard's watchdogs there to report on her every movement.

…but for how long that fear would last while outnumbering her, fully armed, in the light of day, and without the protection of the small but loyal Winkie milita that guarded Kiamo Ko, believing her to be the only one who could somehow rescue their royal family (they didn't know Sarima and the others had been brutally executed long ago) remained to be seen.

"We have to get back to Kiamo Ko…" she paused and looked at the crystal wand clutched pitifully in the Countess' dainty gloved hands. "I don't suppose that will do us a lot of good if worse comes to worst. Also, making the cake explode only looked foolish, I would have thought your skills would have advanced _somewhat _in all this time, Glinda."

"Well you don't have to be mean about it!" the blonde snapped, pouting as she struggled to her feet amidst the massive blue and silver folds of her gown.

Elphaba wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I see your taste in clothing hasn't improved any."

"Oh don't start that again now," Glinda said. "Elphie, didn't Dorian get touched by the mirror, with us?"

"Dorian?" the Witch asked. "You mean that annoying blond man in the foppish clothes? Reminded me a bit of Tibbett and Crope."

Glinda frowned. "Yes. He's my son."

The Witch snorted. "Figures,"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing. I don't seem him around here, in any case. For his sake, I hope he didn't get sucked in with us. The Gale Force isn't known for their mercy…" the Witch's forehead creased in a deep scowl, she seemed to be remembering something. "Liir used to shadow their every movement with a child's admiration, but lately he's been greatly upset by the shows they make of killing people."

"Liir?"

Elphaba merely glared at her, as though for _daring _to be curious. "He is a child. He lives with Nanny and I in Kiamo Ko."

"Your son?" Glinda asked in disbelief. "And Klaus is your son as well…?"

The Witch merely gave her another long, withering look. "Maybe…" she muttered, turning on her heel.

"Maybe?" Glinda asked incredulously.

"You're not a parrot, are you, Glinda, dear?"

"…Sorry. I don't suppose it's any of my business."

"No, it isn't."

They had begun walking. Glinda wished she hadn't worn heels, as the uneven earth caused her feet to ache. "We're not really friends anymore, are we?"

"Were we? At some time?" the Witch asked coldly, still looking straight ahead.

"Wasn't there a time?" Glinda asked. "At Shiz? When you might have called me your friend?"

"…No, I don't think so, Glinda."

"Surely there must have been! Don't you remember—you, and Nessarose, and I, eating lunch together in Crage Hall?"

"You mean when you first got the knack for making other people's food explode in their face?"

Glinda smiled a little. "…Yes, I suppose so."

But Elphaba Thropp remained silent.

There were other memories floating out there, as well. There was the Emerald City…an fleeting exchange in the back of a carriage. A brush of lips against skin…but she didn't want to mention that.

The minutes dragged by, stretched into hours, and Glinda began to grow cold, the gown was heavy, her feet hurt, and she was getting out of breath, but Elphaba continued on as though she could keep walking for another million miles without pause. The blonde sorceress pouted, but it hardly did any good, since Elphie wasn't looking at her.

Then something in the air changed. It felt heavier, somehow. Something sinister tugged at the back of her mind, and Glinda shuddered. "Elphie…Elphie I don't like this."

She smelled smoke now, and the strange coppery stench of blood and…decay. "Elph—"

"Hush!" the Witch had finally stopped, and she held a hand to Glinda's mouth, her eyes dark, conveying a very stern warning. "We are nearing the village of Red Windmill, where the Wizard's soldiers are stationed."

"Can't we go around? Somehow?" she asked in a murmur of a voice.

"We are," the Witch replied with a grimace. "As much as possible. You want to reach Kiamo Ko and the protection of the Arjiki tribes and Winkie militia by nightfall, don't you?"

Glinda shivered and regarded her companion uneasily. "But is it…safe?"

"Of course not, don't be an idiot," Elphaba stated flatly. "Now shut up and follow me."

It wasn't very long until they saw they body. Glinda stumbled, she would have fallen right on her face if Elphaba hadn't grabbed her arm in a bone-crushing grip and dragged her past it. She felt bile rising in her gut, burning the back of her throat, and she began to make a horrible choking-gagging noise.

She thought she was going to be sick. A minute later, she was.

Elphaba regarded her impatiently, looking around worriedly to see if any of the soldiers were on lookout. "Hurry up!" she ordered, as though Glinda had any choice. A minute later, Elphaba was dragging her on.

Ten minutes later, the gruesome remains were out of sight, but the stench still hung faintly in the air. And Glinda still tasted the bile in her mouth. She wanted desperately to erase the image of the mutilated corpse from her mind, but it was still there, every time she shut her eyes.

She was surprised to find that Elphaba was helping her walk. She hadn't even noticed it, in the moments of horror after seeing the soldier's body. "Why…why would they do that…to one of their own, Elphie?" she whispered in a shaking voice.

Elphaba's bony grip tightened on her shoulder. "Liir found him like that a few days ago. He overheard what happened, and it upset him a lot—he was always too fascinated with soldiers for his own damn good—apparently the soldier suggested something and his superiors didn't approve. They decided to use him to make an example to the others—make sure no one else has thoughts of interfering with the Wizard's plans."

"Oh…what are the Wizard's plans?"

"You mean besides unification? The usual—he's sending someone to kill me."

"Like an assassin?" Glinda asked.

"Something like that," the Witch murmured. "Can you walk now?"

"What? Oh—y—yes," Glinda said quietly, wrapping her arms around her waist as Elphaba let her go.

Both women fell into a long and uncomfortable silence.

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There were mountains in the distance. Steep, black, craggy-looking mountains. Dorian wasn't sure he liked the sight of them. He had been walking for over an hour, and with no sign of his mother or the witch. He had found a small village, but chosen to observe it at a distance for the time being. It seemed overrun with soldiers, the uniforms of which did not resemble anything he had ever seen before, even at a distance. If they were the ones his mother had said were trying to kill people, he didn't think it would be to his advantage to saunter down the hill and introduce himself.

Especially not after the body he'd found, provided those soldiers stationed down there were the ones responsible for it. And they seemed to be, since they certainly hadn't removed it.

Dorian crouched at the base of one of the few barren trees scattered over the rough terrain and held his head in his hands. This was a nightmare. Only not the sort where you could wake up. No, the stench of that rotting corpse had been too real for that, the nauseating smell of blood, even long-dried. It had been splattered all over the victim's stripped body, from where his stomach had been sliced open, his entrails falling out as the corpse twisted slowly through the air, nailed crudely to an old windmill. Stripped, castrated, and gutted. It really wasn't a fate Dorian was in a hurry to share.

Finally, he stood again, and looked around once more at the dismal alien landscape that surrounded him. "What a time to get lost…" he looked one way, and then the other. The land in both directions looked exactly the same. And none of it looked pleasant. Not to mention that he didn't have the foggiest ghost of a notion where his mother and the Witch would have gone _anyways. _

"Could this possibly get any more difficult!"

There was the sound—the click of a loaded gun—no, make that _several _loaded guns, and the Earl turned slowly to see that he had somehow been surrounded by a group of the soldiers he had been trying so hard to avoid.

They were armed with ancient-looking muskets and swords, which might have made the Earl laugh, if not for the fact that even horrendously out-of-date weapons could still kill you quite effectively.

"You're not from around here," the Commander stated in a voice utterly devoid of emotion. "You're not one of the Winkie tribes…hell you look Gilikinese!"

_Was that a good thing or a bad thing? _

"Uh…I was travelling with some…merchants (hell, it was worth a shot) and I got…um…separated from my companions."

"No merchants travel through the Great Kells these days," the Commander snorted. "The Great and Powerful Oz is especially interested in keeping a close eye on the Vinkus, and their tribes. For obvious reasons."

_Riiiiight. Obvious. How do I get myself into these situations again?_

"I don't even know the Great and…whatever…Oz,"

"FOOL! No one "knows" the almighty Wizard!"

_Wizard? Are these men _sane?

"Besides, I didn't know I was trespassing on your…Great…Kells,"

"You mean you passed through a mountain range without noticing it?" the soldiers sneered.

"Bind his hands," the Commander nodded to two of the soldiers. "You're coming with us."

**To be continued in Chapter Five: Good Intentions**


	5. Chapter 5: Good Intentions

**Chapter Five**

**Good Intentions**

_The damage is unlimited  
To everyone I've tried to help  
Or tried to love  
…  
In a long career of distress  
Every time I could, I tried making good  
And what I made was a mess!_

_--(Wicked the Musical: No Good Deed)_

Elphaba marched stoically ahead. Since the incident with the mutilated body the Witch had regained her distance, and was decidedly indifferent to her blonde companion. They had walked for over an hour, Elphaba striding forwards, her dark eyes searching the oncoming night for sight of the castle, and Glinda trailing several feet behind in her cumbersome gowns, complaining that her feet hurt.

Elphaba continued to pointedly ignore her. Which caused Glinda to remember the last time they had spoken. The fight was over something as silly, as trivial, as a pair of old shoes.

Nessarose, Elphaba's sister, had just been killed in the tornado. They said 'the tornado' because it sounded better than saying that a house had fallen on her head. Elphaba had returned from Kiamo Ko, and had walked with Glinda through Colwen Grounds. There were bluebirds. Glinda still remembered how the Witch her old roommate Elphaba had become had frightened her. The strange charisma and the stoic air of detachment, mingled with an inexplicably fiery passion, although for what, exactly, had always remained more or less a mystery to Glinda.

There was something thrilling about it. So much so that she didn't know quite what to say, and so she had chattered on too much. They had walked passed the places splattered with graffiti of the overjoyed Munchkinlanders who had seen Nessarose as a tyrant and called her the 'Wicked Witch of the East.'

What a sight for a grieving sister to see! Not that Elphaba had ever let any of her pain show. Of course not.

Glinda had told Elphaba how she had sent the girl who was in that house, the girl they called "Dorothy," to the Emerald City.

It was strange, she and Elphaba had been to the Emerald City, and so much had changed there. She had won Elphaba in that city, and lost Elphaba in that city. She had thought she had lost her forever. She had returned to the Shiz alone, the burning of Elphaba's lips against her cheek imprinted there forever. She did not know how many tears she had cried over her roommates' disappearance. The girl she had loathed for the longest time, in her horrid old rags, with her musty old books, and political balderdash.

How she had cried and cried and cried!

Then they had met again, at Colwen Grounds, and Elphaba had changed so much. She had not returned for Glinda, either, even though the husky whisper"_hold out, my sweet," _continued to echo in her head and in her dreams as it had for years. No, Elphie had only returned to see Nessarose as Eminent Thropp, head of state, who had orchestrated a revolt and had Munckinland seceded from Oz and set up as an independent state. Still obsessed with politics. She hadn't even seen Glinda. They were only reunited after Nessa's death. And Elphie was still always looking at the bigger picture, and her righteous causes, and probably not thinking of her roommate from long-ago at all.

At first Elphaba had surprised Glinda with her concern for the alien girl. She had reprimanded Glinda for lying to her about the Wizard, and sending her to meet him. But then, once she had told her that she had given the poor girl Nessa's shoes—

Glinda would remember the look of raw hurt and fury that had burned across Elphaba's face until the day she died. "You _WHAT_?"

Her entire body trembled violently, and Glinda had actually cowered (inside, of course, she was actually surprised at herself for maintaining an outward façade of false calm).

"Those shoes weren't yours to give away! My father made them! And you just gave them to the clumsy foreign brat who dropped her big clunky house on my sister!"

Glinda had tried to make fun of her—how could Elphaba wear those pretty glass shoes with her dreary old cloaks and shawls? The only foot wear Glinda had ever seen Elphaba wear had been army boots, for Lurline's sake!

She had tried to point out that the shoes had been falling apart until _she _had taken her wand to them and laced them with a magic binding spell. And then, with Elphaba still raving, furious—and more frightening than Glinda had ever seen her—she finally broke down and shouted that she would have kept them if she had known Elphaba wanted them.

_She would have kept them!_ But how was she to know that the Witch was suddenly going to become sentimental over something like a pair of glass shoes? How was _she_ to know? The poor foreign girl had nothing else. Glinda had only been trying to do the right thing.

She was only trying to do the right thing!

Lurline…why did everything she tried to right end up backfiring so horribly?

Chuffrey…Dorian…Elphaba…everyone she cared about—everyone she loved—why did it always have to end with them hating her?

She had a terrible headache.

They're only shoes…they're only shoes…she'd pleaded. She had to get them out of Munchkinland, the pagans had begun to attribute divine powers to the silly things. She was just trying to make everything right!

Her head was throbbing painfully, she could barely see through the tears in her eyes.

But Elphaba had turned on her and snapped viscously. Glinda would always remember.

"You're working with the Wizard, aren't you? You have no sense of charity, Glinda. Don't fool yourself. You're working with the Wizard. You're betraying everyone—the Munchkinlanders, the girl you claim you were trying to help—hell, you're sending her right into the Wizard's clutches!"

Glinda's head was spinning. But Dorothy had been just a girl. No one would take her seriously. The Wizard couldn't possibly see her as a threat—could he?

But Elphaba was paranoid, she spoke of the Wizard using the shoes to reannex Munckinland, somehow. She spoke of them as though they had power. She was hysterical. "The Wizard mustn't have those shoes! If you won't retrieve them, I'll get them back myself!" She had stood there, as still and impregnable as a marble statue, towering above Glinda in the stormy darkness, her black cloak flaring out in the wind around her, her eyes burning coals that cut the Good Witch to the core.

"_I want those shoes, Glinda."_

And now, here they were, wandering lost in the darkness, stranded somewhere in the Vinkus, and Elphaba wouldn't even look at her. Her feet were killing her, and she didn't know how much longer she could walk, dragging her heavy skirts after her.

The old Elphaba would have at least said it was her own fault for wearing such ridiculous clothing, but now the Witch did not even look at her. Any sort of pity she had felt for Glinda when they had stumbled upon the soldier's corpse had apparently dissipated.

She wanted to try once more to heal the rift that had come between them. To make everything better. But once again, the words all jumbled together deep in her throat, and she didn't know what to say, or how to say them, or how to possibly express all that she was feeling in one string of limited words. And so, of course, she said exactly the wrong thing.

The most wrong thing, in fact, that she could possibly have said.

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"The shoes won't make your father love you, Elphie," Glinda said quietly.

The Witch froze as she walked, her back straightened, green hands clenched tightly. She was too angry even to speak, the words boiled in her chest but stopped in her tightened throat. The shoes her father had lovingly made for her sister Nessarose, with the craft he had learned from the Quadling lover of himself and Elphaba's mother. She could not explain how, even if Glinda had used her magic to mend the shoes, used her magic to give Nessarose the power to stand and walk without assistance, they were still _not _Glinda's shoes to give away.

They were _Nessa's_ shoes.

They were _her_ _family's_ shoes.

They were _HER _shoes!

"You had no right! No right to give them away to some drippy little farm girl! They were MINE!"

She certainly had no right to send them right into the hands of the Wizard, who would use them to manipulate the Munchkinlanders, who had put so much significance into the shoes with the Lurlinist beliefs. But again, all the anger that really boiled up deep within her was that

"They were _mine_."

The blonde sighed, her blue eyes not meeting the Witch. How many times had they had this argument? How many times had it driven them farther and farther apart? "But the girl didn't have a pair of shoes for herself, Elphie! She didn't have anything! She was lost, frightened…I honestly didn't think you would care. You deserted your family for years! I was the one to take care of Nessa after you vanished!"

"So that makes my family's belongings your property then, does it?" the Witch snapped.

"You know that's not what I meant!"

The Witch marched back to her, black skirts flaring in the wind, the old broom clutched tightly in her hand. "While I was struggling, suffering—while I was helping the Animals and the Resistance fight against the Wizard, living in hiding and risking my life, watching people I loved die—"

"But I still don't understand _why_ you did those things, Elphie! You would have been the Eminent Thropp!"

"You really have no concept of it, do you, Glinda? What it really means to help the people who need you—you think a few charity galas are enough!"

Elphaba regretted her words the instant she said them, but could not change her frozen, bitter expression. She saw the deep hurt spread across the Good Witch's face, poor Glinda, who had, despite her naivety, worked very hard to try and deserve all of the privileges and luxuries she had. Glinda, who wasn't really so bad…who was even capable of intelligent thought when she put her mind to it…

For a moment, the shoes almost slid away. For a moment, the Witch could have almost found it in her to forgive—

But then that wounded face turned harsh, and angry. The blonde clenched her own hands into fists and shoved Elphaba roughly out of the way. "Oh really? Well, where are all those people you "REALLY" tried to help, Miss Elphaba? Where are the Animals now? Did all your oh-so-important sacrifices save them? Where is Dr. Dillamond? Nessarose? Fiyero?"

That was the last straw.

Elphaba felt the anger crackling along her spine and Fiyero's name sent a spike of fire straight through her heart.

_Memories of a dark room in the Emerald_ _City, secret meetings, the touch of hands and lips. "Fiyero, Fieryo…" a quiet ache deep down in her heart. "Yero my hero."_

The crack of the Witch's hand across Glinda's face rang sharply through the empty landscape. Glinda stared at her in surprise for a moment, before her hand struck Elphaba back. "I should have known you wouldn't change—you're still the stuck up—"

"Don't you dare say his name!"

"What do you care about Fiyero? The last time we met you practically accused me of having an affair with him!" Glinda shouted back.

"You idiot!" Elphaba growled. "All you can ever think about is yourself—of COURSE the whole world revolves around GLINDA's affairs. I was trying to CONFESS to you, damn it!" she roared, without realizing what she was saying until it was too late. When the words flew from her, directly from some dark tightly knotted pit in her chest, she suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of aching, and loss.

And relief.

How many years had it been, and she had never told anyone?

Glinda was shocked into silence, staring at her, pink lips slightly parted, her crystal blue eyes rounder than Elphaba had ever seen. And slowly, tears started welling up in Glinda's eyes for reasons the Witch could not fathom. The petite blonde's shoulders began to shake, and she turned away from Elphaba much too quickly, falling to the ground amidst the folds of her massive skirts. "You—_YOU_—Elphie—?"

The Witch sighed heavily. She clutched the broom tightly, feeling the rough worn splinters digging into her bony fingers. "Yes," she said quietly. "I was with the resistance. That's why they came for him. I'm the reason he died."

"But you—you LOVED him—Fiyero?" Glinda asked, choking. _After that night in the Emerald_ _City_—_after those words whispered in the back of the carriage? After—after _everything

The Witch stared at the mess of blonde curls before her, confused, and frustrated. "Yes. That's what I've been saying!" she snapped irritably. "Fiyero and I were lovers. It's because of me that he was killed! By the Unamed God, Glinda, can't you just listen for once? I came out here to the Vinkus to find his wife Sarima and apologize, but she wouldn't let me—"

"W—wouldn't let you…?" Glinda murmured in a kind of haze.

"I came to seek forgiveness. And then the Wizard's forces came while I was away at Colwen Grounds, and they marched Sarima and her sisters, and their children away—and now they're all dead, and I'm the one to blame and—"

"And what?" Glinda asked, rising shakily and turning to glare at her. "You want forgiveness now, is that it?"

Elphaba stared at her, open-mouthed in disbelief.

"Well I've forgiven you for everything else you've done—like deserting me in the middle of the Emerald City to fight for your damn heroic, self-sacrificing causes, to play the glorious martyr, the hero, the anti-hero, while I was left to cry alone in the back of a coach!" Glinda spat the words angrily. "And what do you care? You've never apologized for that!"

"Good God, Glinda! Can't you stop being so damned selfish for one minute! These people died! It's a lot more important than what happened between us in the Emerald City twenty years ago!"

"Not to me, it isn't!" the blonde shouted back at her. "I was alone and scared and I TRUSTED you and I—I—"

The Witch's cold glare bore into her, relentless, unfeeling.

"I might have loved you, damn you!" she cried, turning away and sobbing.

0000000000000000

When she looked back, the Witch had continued to stride ahead, not so much as looking back at Glinda, as though nothing at all had happened. "How can _you _demand forgiveness, when over those stupid shoes you still haven't forgiven _me_?"

0000000000000000

The Witch strode ahead, as fast she could without actually running away. She didn't like seeing Glinda here. She hadn't seen Glinda, except for the brief instance at Colwen Grounds, in years. The Glinda she had known in university hadn't had the faint lines around her eyes and mouth, which the Witch noticed even beneath all that powdered make up.

But that shy face, those wide blue eyes, were still the same. Horribly the same.

She didn't want to think about Glinda. It was always easier around the native Winkies and Arjiki tribesmen, who knew her only as 'the Witch.' Glinda knew who she really was, well, as much as anybody did. Glinda knew her name, and used it freely, and by the Unnamed God, how it cut her to the core every time she had to hear it!

She had given up the name. She preferred simply 'the Witch.' 'Elphaba' had so many failings attached to it. The murder of Dr. Dillamond. Her tireless efforts to save the Animals which had come to nothing. Her desertion of Glinda , in the back of a carriage somewhere in the Emerald City. The disappearance of her lover, Fiyero. Her failed attempts to make peace with Fiyero's wife Sarima, and the subsequent murders of not only Sarima, but her sisters, and the children. God, all of Fiyero's children.

Except for Liir.

And even Liir was a sort of failing. She looked at him and didn't feel like a mother. She had never been the mother.

And worst of all, the forgiveness that she could never receive. The mistakes she could never atone for.

Glinda struggled behind her in her ridiculous skirts, while the Witch continued to march steadfastly ahead.

0000000000000000

The Major scowled at the alien landscape that unfolded before his very eyes. He did not approve in the slightest of other worlds existing within Mirrors, even magic ones. At least it wasn't bright and cheery, but a suitably sombre grey, dismal place, with only a few sparse skeletal trees and mostly rocky terrain with jagged cliffs and dark mountains.

Now he only had to find that bugger Eroica, although why he was going to save the damn nuisance he couldn't quite say, except that it was on the whole preferable to comforting the hysterical Shenshen. He was more grateful that the wedding had been interrupted than he would admit, and lit another cigarette.

There appeared to be smoke drifting skyward in lazy spirals from the chimneys of a little town that he could see a few leagues away. It seemed as good a place to begin looking as any, and he began towards the village of Red Winmill.

0000000000000000

Dorian was profoundly uncomfortable. His arms had been bound to his sides with a dozen heavy coils of rope, which threw him off balance as well as being quite painfully tight. The soldiers as well, were beginning to disturb him all the greater. Perhaps it should not have been surprising, given what they had done to the poor bastard nailed to the windmill, but the thief still couldn't quite swallow how _very _different they were from the Major.

Hell, he was beginning to think they were even worse than the KGB.

They didn't have that sense of justice or nobility that the Major had. Nothing about them seemed to indicate that they were a force for good, and not just that they had rather unceremoniously tied him up and were shoving him along the twisting path with the butts of their guns, but their callous, sneering eyes.

"You're in big trouble, Goldilocks," one of the soldiers sauntering along beside him said. "We've been stationed out here in the middle of nowhere an awfully long time, most of the boys have gotten pretty bored, if you know what I mean."

"Did anyone ever tell you that for soldiers you are _most _unprofessional?" the Earl replied with disdain. In fact they had some nerve calling themselves officers, the Major could have shown the lot of them! If he was there, or even on the same planet.

Dorian hoped his fear wasn't showing as someone grabbed him roughly from behind, and pulled him backwards. He felt a hand bruising his throat and another pulling at his hair.

There was a thirst for blood and something else glittering in the beady black eyes of the men. They could not have been more different from the Major and his agents. "So Commander Cherrystone said we couldn't touch Dorothy. No one's gonna care what happens to this Gilikinese cad."

"Hey, you know who he reminds me of?" said the one gripping his throat. "That Glinda the Good! I always wanted to do her, this'll be the next best thing."

"The sorceress, huh?" their leader hesitated. "What if they're related or something?"

"Y-YES!" Dorian choked. "We're definitely—totally—completely—related!"

The grip on his throat was momentarily released and he gasped for breath, choking. "She's my mother!"

The soldiers all looked at him for a long moment. "The—the sorceress, yes! And she'll—she'll—turn you all into newts for this!"

Sadly, it didn't have quite the effect he had been hoping for. Rather than being stricken with terror, the soldiers began laughing uproariously at him. Then someone punched him hard in the jaw, and he lost his balance, crashing to the ground, the bindings around his arms preventing him from bracing himself, of course, and his chin slammed painfully into the hard dirt.

He felt hands groping up his back, over his legs. He managed to kick someone, as the pained cry he heard evidenced, but then a sharp blow sent a shock of blinding pain through his chest.

There was the unmistakable bang of gunfire, and Dorian kicked another of his assailants off him, only to see a hole burst through the man's forehead as he slumped to the ground.

_Oh God, what now? _He thought, as more gunshots rang through the clearing, and the soldiers that had been attacking him cried out as they either fell or scrambled away.

Their leader grabbed his hair roughly, pulling his head back painfully, and Dorian felt the cold edge of a dagger being pressed against his neck. "What sorcery is this?" he shouted into Dorian's ear.

A second later, another shot tore the skin from the top of the commander's hand, and the Wizard's soldier screamed, bringing the blade down with the last of his strength. Dorian pulled out of the way, and the knife grazed against his shoulder, cutting through his shirt and tearing at his skin.

The commander had released him and was running away, and Dorian tried to sit up, but the rope made it quite difficult. After a moment of struggling, he finally gave up, and fell back to the ground with a sigh.

"And you call yourself the world's greatest thief, getting captured by this riff-raff?" a familiar voice said.

And Dorian finally realized who had fired the shots.

"Major!" he exclaimed, seeing the familiar tall, dark-haired officer coolly reloading his magnum in the middle of the now empty clearing. Empty, except of course for them, and the poor bastard who'd taken a bullet to the head, and another wounded soldier lying on his side by the Major's feet.

"It is quite unfair of you to make fun of me, darling!" Eroica pouted.

"Don't call me that, you degenerate!" the Major scowled.

"Well, are you going to untie me or not?"

"I don't know," he lit a cigarette. "It might be easier to deal with you like this."

"That's not funny!" the Earl whined.

"Alright, alright," he stepped forwards, when the soldier who had been lying on the ground next to him stirred, and a hand reached up and grabbed his ankle.

0000000000000000

He fell forwards, collided with Eroica, and in the next moment, they were both on the ground. Eroica was quite effectively pinned beneath him, his arms tied, the riot of golden curls all in a mess around them. Some remote part of his mind was screaming MOVE, YOU IDIOT! but his hands were caught in all those curls, and somehow his entire mind gone simply blank.

The degenerate actually had the nerve to wink at him. "Well, you know I'm certainly not complaining daaarling, but were you planning to untie me or is this more your kink?"

The voice was like a slap in the face with ice water, and the Major shook his head violently, screaming several German insults as he staggered to his feet, brushing the dirt off his uniform. "PERVERT! I should leave you here to rot, and do the world a favour!"

"Such harsh words," the Earl pouted. "And after it was _you _who veritably pounced on _me_!"

The Major turned back to him with a look of pure outrage. "You damn queer!" he shouted, then turned and gave the fallen soldier another good kick. "I didn't—"

"And I've been wounded, too," the thief continued. "Ah—my shoulder!"

There was blood seeping through his shirt, and the Major reluctantly took the knife that had been held to the Earl's throat from the ground and cut the ropes that were binding Eroica's arms. "It's just a scratch!"

"Oh dear, but it's _bleeding_! Oh God! Do you think it'll scar?" the thief asked worriedly

"So what if it does? You're a man, you shouldn't be worried about a scar or two!"

"Oh no, it would be just beastly," the Earl continued, completely ignoring him, of course. The Major rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Eroica stood shakily, making a dramatic scene of clutching his wounded arm (of course), but then he turned and looked at the Major in that foppishly annoying manner. "What?" Klaus snapped at him, irritated, embarrassed, and in desperate need of another smoke.

"Thank you," the thief said quietly. "I _was _scared."

"Idiot! I don't care!" he retorted sharply.

"I just don't think I ever—you're even more wonderful than I thought you were!" Eroica said. The Major groaned silently and rolled his eyes.

"We have more important things to worry about, you pervert!" he snapped, surveying the scene of destruction. "Those weren't the only soldiers stationed here. The other regiments will be out looking for them."

"You'll think of something, I'm sure," the thief said, actually batting his eyelashes at him! And walking towards him…

The Major was quite close to striking the degenerate, but before he had the chance, the Earl's eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell forwards in a perfect drama-class faint. The Major muttered that they didn't have time for such idiocy, but the perverted fop was lying perfectly still on the ground. He kicked him a little with the end of his boot. Not even a twitch. Then he noticed how sickly and grey the Englishman's skin had gotten, and knelt beside him.

His eyes fell to the thin red cut slashed across the Earl's left shoulder. He lifted the dagger that had done it, and examined the blade. It was coated with something the Major could not identify.

Poison?

There was a low growl behind him, and he slowly turned to see a pack of very-hungry looking wolves slinking out of the decimated woodlands, snouts rippling as they snarled and barred their long pointed teeth.

His eyes fell back to the unconscious Earl beside him, and then back to the snarling animals. Iron Klaus narrowed his gaze angrily.

"Just wonderful."

**To be continued in Chapter Six: Loathing**


	6. Chapter 6: Family Reunion

**Chapter Six: Family Reunion**

"_I'll pray for your soul," Nessarose promised._

"_I'll wait for your shoes," Elphie answered._

_--Wicked: The Life and Times by Gregory Maguire_

Elphaba stopped suddenly, her back straight. Her mouth curled into a snarl. "Elphie?" Glinda asked, out of breath, nearly collapsing under her gowns, "What is it?"

The Witch's head turned slightly to the left. "I hear…"

The sorceress looked around in confusion. "What? What do you hear?"

"The wolves…Killyjoy," was her green-skinned companion's cryptic reply.

"_Killy_-Joy?" Glinda squeaked. "Why doesn't that sound like someone I want to meet?"

The Witch ignored her and began walking again, turning sharply to the left. "Where are you going?" Glinda called after her. "Elphie, wait!"

"I don't understand why you were there anyways, Glinda," the Witch muttered crossly under her breath. "Even if Lord Chuffrey Red Gloria _did _somehow come into possession of a pair of the Quadling Magic Mirrors, why did you have to be _there_, of all places?"

"You don't have to sound so—disgusted!" Glinda snapped back, the hurt plain in her voice.

"Why were you at my…son's…wedding, Glinda? Sticking your fancy wand in where it wasn't wanted."

"But it was YOU who stopped the wedding, Elphie! It's not fair of you to—Hey, why _did _you stop the wedding, anyways?"

"Do you really have to ask?" the Witch said, her lips curling into a disgusted frown. "'_Shenshen_.'"

"It was an odd coincidence to be sure," the blonde noted. "But still, calling off a wedding for a son you've never even met based solely on the fact that his fiancé shares the name of someone you didn't like in university seems a _touch _extreme, doesn't it?"

"No," Elphaba replied. "The satin bells on the shoulders of your gown are a _touch_ extreme, Glinda. I was outright mad."

"Then why—?"

"I don't know why, except that witch's are known to have their bouts of lunacy."

"Not this 'witch' business again, Elphie!"

"The last I heard, the Munchkinlanders were calling you a witch too, Glinda. Albeit a good one."

"Well the proper term is 'sorceress,' you just can't expect the peasants to—you completely avoided my question!"

The Witch stopped, and held up a hand, gesturing for Glinda to be silent. She listened again for the sounds of her dogs. Killyjoy and his wolfy companions roamed the sparse forests scattered around the Vinkus, and she was certain she had heard growling.

It reminded her of when the wolf had attacked what she thought was a baby, and she had forced her way through the horrific pain of water to rescue it, only to find that it not a baby human, but a baby monkey, Chistery.

And that had been the start of her new family, a family of wolves, bees, the ravens, and the soon-to-be 'winged' monkeys. She didn't know what she would find this time, but anything would be preferable to answering Glinda's question, because it was a question she couldn't answer even for herself. Any maternal instincts or impulses she had came to few and far between to be properly recognized. And so she was at a loss.

Apart from her younger brother and sister she still had never warmed to the idea of children, not even Fiyero's, so it was beyond her why she should care at all for the fully grown son of a lover she hadn't really cared for, or seen in over a three or four or five years. And she didn't.

She had just stopped his wedding.

Elphaba pushed through one last patch of dried bracken and spidery pine bushes with Glinda right behind her, and found herself in the midst of the wolf pack. In the centre of it all was, lo and behold, the son she had been told was named—what was it? Klaus?—and an unconscious blond man who did look a disturbing amount like Glinda now that she thought about it.

"Killyjoy!" she snapped brusquely, and the big dog turned his snarling head away from the two strangers and whimpered up at her. His tale wagged when she scratched him behind the ears, and the other wolves backed slowly away.

"And you!" she said, turning to Klaus. He was holding one of those strange short weapons, the Gale Forces had nothing like it, but she vaguely remembered Heinz showing her weapons of that sort in the Other world. "Don't point that gun at my dogs!"

He looked at her in utterly blank surprise for a solid minute as she made her way through the pack of wolves and looked down at the unconscious Dorian. "I see you met the Gale Force."

Glinda let out a small cry of alarm behind her, and rushed to her son's side. "Dorian! Is he…?"

"Unconscious? Yes," the Witch replied dryly.

"This isn't funny, Elphie!"

"Has the Gale Force been known to coat their weapons with poison?" this was Klaus.

She shook her head. How should she know? "I wouldn't put it past them." _I'll ask Liir when we reach Kiamo Ko, he'll know what they use. _

_Now I'm relying on _Liir_, how bad have things really gotten? _The Witch grimaced at that thought. She turned to the wolves and sent them out to watch for any soldiers blocking their path to the fortress. Then she turned back to Glinda and Klaus, both of whom were watching her with a sort of confusion and horror.

"You can talk to animals now, Elphie?" Glinda asked. "Is this from all your work helping the Animals? I don't understand."

The Witch merely shrugged. "I don't know why they listen to me. Now do you want to reach the safety of Kiamo Ko, or do you want to stand here asking me pointless questions all night?"

So the three looked at each other, and then at the unconscious Dorian. "I'm not carrying him," the Witch said.

"Well _I _can't carry him!" Glinda exclaimed. "It's all I can do to carry myself in these petticoats!"

"That's what you get for wearing something so ridiculous," the Witch replied. She turned to Klaus, who had fallen silent again. He seemed to have a perpetual glare fixed to his expression, although it was a marked improvement over Liir's vapidity. And at least he looked pretty strong. "You could make yourself useful and carry him, you know."

The glare intensified, if that was possible, and the Witch glared right back. "Or we could leave him here."

"Elphie, no!" Glinda exclaimed.

The black haired man—whom Elphaba still couldn't quite bring herself to think of as her son, stupid transdimensional time differences—crossed his arms and scowled at her. "If we leave that idiot out here to die, we'll be doing Interpol a favour, they've been trying to catch the thief for years."

The Witch turned back to Glinda. "Fancy that, you having a son that's a thief. There must be something about that—inability to grasp the concept of other people's property—that runs in the family."

"I know you're mad at me over Nessa's shoes, but don't let my son die out here, Elphie!"

Why not? Why not add to the legions of angry, accusing ghosts that hovered around her, flickering in the shadows at the peripherals of her awareness. Doctor Dillamond, Fiyero, Fiyero's wife Sarima, the children, Nessa…

She was evil now, wasn't she? She was Wicked.

"I'll take him," the black haired man spoke suddenly, breaking what had been threatening to become a lengthy silence. Although he looked far from pleased.

"I thought you said if we left him out here to die we'd be doing everyone a favour?" the Witch asked.

Klaus glared at her.

"Great. You have issues, don't you?"

"I have issues? You're the one that's green!" he snapped.

"Oh no! Don't start fighting now, you two!"

"SHUT UP!" they both snapped in unison, and poor Glinda jumped.

"N-now now there's no need to…erm," the petite blonde glanced nervously between the soldier and the witch, both of whom were glaring daggers at her, and in the end opted simply to back away.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Kiamo Ko appeared before them an hour later, it's sheer black cliffs jutting sharply out against the skyline. "Who are they?" Klaus asked, watching the Winkies that paraded before the entrance suspiciously.

"Vinku tribesmen, mostly. They think one day I'll rescue their royal family."

"So they're…not planning on sticking our heads on those pikes they're carrying, right?" Glinda tittered nervously.

Elphaba was about to respond—when something cold and wet fell onto the back of her hand. She dropped the broom, grabbing her hand as hot, searing pain ran through her entire arm. "Elphie, are you alright?" she heard Glinda crying as she staggered forewords.

_No._

She heard the patter of drops of rain striking the dirt on either side of her. The sound sent a wave of terror through her. The cool dampness in the air compounded the fear, and her heart lurched in her chest.

_No. No. No._

The Witch recoiled, pulling her thick shawls higher up around her face and cowering beneath the brim of her pointed hat.

In the next instant she was off, tearing across the finally stretch of land that stood between her and the high walls of the old stone fortress. She passed the Winkie militia in a blur of black and green, and left Glinda to explain things to Major Eberbach.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Glinda had known something was wrong the second Elphaba had stopped, and then when the Witch had shuddered and grabbed at her hand as though she was in tremendous pain, the sorceress had lifted her own hand and felt the cool drops of rain falling against her palm.

Then it was no surprise to her when the Witch had all but flown the last few yards, and vanished into Kiamo Ko. "Oh, Elphie," she sighed, bending to retrieve the fallen broom. She held it in her hands for a moment, feeling the worn splintering wood under her hands.

"What was that about it?"

She turned to see the Major glaring at her and shuddered. He had Dorian slung over his shoulder and was regarding the broom with the same cold, hard suspicion that he seemed to regard everything.

She sighed. "It's raining."

His green eyes narrowed at her in annoyance. "Yes…?"

"Elphaba has an allergy," she said softly, feeling the now steady rain dampening her curls and making them heavy against her shoulders. She didn't meet his gaze. Only Elphaba could possibly have a son that was as difficult to deal with as this. Those penetrating, accusing, eyes were the very same. "She's allergic to water."

The Major snorted and marched past her, shaking his head. "Allergic to water? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Sixty percent of the human body is _made up of _water!"

The good witch hurried after him, mostly because she thought he looked like good protection should the Winkies turn out to be less friendly than Elphaba had indicated. "Stupid or not, that's the way it is!" she chirped, running so fast she tripped over her own skirts and stumbled against the German officer.

He shuddered and jerked away from her so quickly she tumbled right into the mud! She looked at him, and through the rain, saw that he looked absolutely disgusted, before he turned and, still carrying Dorian over his shoulder, walked back towards the Winkies, who must have seen them approaching with the Witch because they were all standing at attention and saluting, which Glinda was certain would suit the Major just fine.

She huffed and hit the mud on either side of her, causing it to splatter all over her already ruined gown. Why did her son have to fall in love with such a jerk?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Witch fell back against the stone wall in the entrance way, her heart racing in her chest, her breath coming in frantic gasps. _It's just adrenaline, _she told herself sternly, forcing her trembling limbs back under control.

Water still terrified her, in any form, and she shuddered, shaking the droplets of rain from her shawl, careful not to splash any onto her skin, and turned to wait for her…she grimaced as the word crossed her mind…guests.

"Elphie, is that you?" a haggard wheezing voice called from the stairs.

"Nanny…" the Witch turned to the winding staircase, and she was horrified to see the nearly ninety year old woman shuffling along the narrow stone steps by herself. "You'll fall!" she exclaimed, running up the stairs and clasping the old woman's arms tightly to steady her.

"What?" Nanny shouted. "Fall? Nonsense, besides what's all this commotion down here? I hear you banging doors and things."

"Where's Liir?" Elphaba frowned. "I asked him to watch you! That stupid little idiot!"

"Oh, he's around here somewhere," Nanny replied absently as though she'd forgotten what they were talking about. "Have you tried the fishing well?"

Elphaba's frown deepened at the old joke. "He'll wish he _was _stuck down there again once I find him!"

"Don't be so hard on the boy," Nanny said in one of her rare moments of seeming lucidity. "He's probably just gone off to watch the soldiers at Red Windmill again. You know how he idolizes them."

The Witch let out a breath that was more like a growl. "Yes, the idiot is perfectly infatuated with my enemies."

"He wants a father—"

"I know that!" Elphaba snapped, she instantly regretted raising her voice to the old woman who had raised her, but Nanny hadn't heard her anyways, and only continued to drone on about Melena and Frex until they reached the bottom of the stairs.

The door crashed open again, letting in the howl of the wind and spray of rain. Elphaba leapt backwards just in time to avoid it and pulled her cloaks tighter. Klaus barged in with the unconscious Dorian, and Glinda trailed unenthusiastically after him, splattered in globs of brown mud from her curls to her slippers. The Witch raised an eyebrow, but decided not to ask.

"I'm just saying, you could have helped me up!" Glinda spluttered, coughing and shaking the rain out of her hair.

"I'm not obligated to help you up, if you didn't wear that ugly costume—"

"Ugly? Major Eberbach, that was uncalled for!"

The Witch looked between them, wondering what she had done to deserve playing hostess to such obviously mad people. _Is this my punishment for the death of Sarima and her family? _She thought, holding a hand to her temples as though she were dizzy. _And they call _me _insane._

_Wait._

She looked up, frowning. "Glinda, what did you call him?" Her gaze flashed to the man. "I thought you're name was Klaus?"

He glared at her. "_Major _Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach of NATO Intelligence."

She didn't know what NATO was, but it sounded like the Wizard's Gale Force officers. The Witch scowled, and snatched her broom back from Glinda. "You mean you're a _soldier_?" she asked with disgust. "Perfect, just perfect. Well, Liir will just love you."

Glinda chose to intervene before the Major could start a shouting match. "Um, Elphie, it's not like that! Soldiers on Earth are different then the Wizard's—"

"You stay out of this!"

"Earth? What's this Earth you're talking about?" Nanny asked fuzzily. "Is that some sort of new tea?"

"Nanny, go back upstairs!"

"I thought you said I shouldn't use the stairs without Liir around to help me. Where is that boy, anyways?"

Elphaba felt her eyebrow twitch and tightened her hold on the broomstick. "That's what I was asking you, remember?" she muttered, turning back to the others who were very inconsiderately dripping water all over her floor. _Water_. She shuddered again and backed further into the entrance hall.

"Shouldn't we be putting Dorian in a nice bed somewhere?" Glinda called after her, and the—Major's—pounding footsteps followed along the narrow corridor as well.

Great, a soldier.

Soldiers had killed Fiyero. Soldiers had executed Sarima and her children.

"Out of TWO sons, you'd think at least one of them wouldn't be obsessed with soldiers!" she snapped, bumping into Chistery as he scuttled towards her from the shadows.

"Wetch. Watch. Witch," he chirruped, leathery wings twitching and jerking. He pawed at her skirt with clumsy monkey hands and she swatted him away with her broom, as gently as she could given her present agitated state.

"What is that…thing?" the Major breathed in disgust.

"I—I don't know," Glinda stammered shakily. "It doesn't look like an animal _or _an Animal to me. Elphie…?"

"That's Chistrey," she snapped, turning back to them so sharply that she almost slapped Klaus in the face with her broom. "And this is his home, so you'll treat him with respect!" she'd had enough of people running after him, pulling at his wings and teasing him when Sarima's children were still alive. She wasn't in a hurry to repeat the headaches those incidents had given her.

Somewhere in the cavernous depths of Kiamo Ko more doors banged open and shut, and the Witch heard the familiar plodding footsteps of her son, Liir. Meanwhile, Nanny had shuffled over to Glinda and was peering at her and touching her face with trembling hands. "Oh, Galinda, Galinda, I remember you and your Ama well, my dear, yes I do. And you've gone on to be Glinda the Good, haven't you? Oh my, my, you look lovely, child, and I remember how you were back at Shiz, dear, oh yes, and Elphie—oh, Elphie was so devoted to you—" the old woman prattled.

The Witch shrugged away from the conversation angrily, grateful when Liir interrupted it in his usual bumbling way of crashing through the door.

He looked up at the motley assemblage of strangers crowding the hallway with wide eyes, and finally looked at her in something like disbelief. "Oh my God," he whispered. "You _do _have friends."

"No I don't!" she snapped. "Liir, attend to Nanny, I won't forgive you for leaving her alone like that!" But the boy didn't move, he only continued to stare at them, mouth agape. She sighed irritably. "What new nonsense is this?"

He looked back at her. "N-nothing,"

"So this is Liir?" Glinda asked.

The Major made a non-committable growl, clearly annoyed at still holding the unconscious Earl and tapped his foot impatiently.

She thought for a moment. "Liir, make yourself useful—"

"—I don't want to," he said, before she even finished. She glared at him.

"Make yourself useful and show the Major where he can put Glinda's son before I castrate you with my foot," she growled.

Unfortunately, he seemed much more awed by the way she had addressed stranger number one, than by her threat. She could practically see the gears working in his brain: a major meant a soldier, like Commander Cherrystone and the other men Liir was so fond of hobnobbing with at Red Windmill. As she expected the boy's eyes, which had been as round as saucers to begin with, grew even wider and inexplicably shinier as they settled on the Major.

"Oh—oh—I mean yes—yes, r—right this way. Are you with the Gale Force? Do you have a rifle? Why is your hair so long? Do you know Commander Cherrystone?" he started asking excitedly. "Why is your uniform different from the soldiers at Red Windmill? Are you from the Emerald City? Do you know Dorothy and her friends? Are you here to arrest Auntie Witch for killing that old lady in Munchkinland? Can I get you a glass of water? You're not allergic to water, are you? I think Auntie Witch is the only one who's allergic to water. She says people know of her in the Emerald City. Have you heard of her in the Emerald City? Were you out in the rain long? Can I get you a towel? What's it like being an officer? Did you have to train really hard? Where did you go to school? What regiment do you belong to?"

The Major's expression was both pained and horrified. He seemed shocked into a complete loss for words. Doubtless it would not be long before the shock wore off and he began shouting again, but then, if he and Liir killed one another it would at least mean two less mouths to feed.

Elphaba patted Klaus on the shoulder and smirked. "Have fun," she said dryly.

**To Be Continued in Chapter Seven: Letting Go**


	7. Chapter 7: Letting Go

**Chapter Seven  
Letting Go**

"_You see what happens when you get involved with me? You're lucky you're still alive." _

_--Klaus, to Dorian (From Eroica with Love: Love in Greece)_

"Dorian's pulse is weakening," Glinda cried, wringing her hands and rising from her chair beside the bed, only to whirl around so quickly it made Klaus dizzy to watch her. She dropped to the small wooden chair again, jamming a fist against her mouth to keep from crying. "Oh by the Unnamed God, Elphie—"

"Oh hush, Glinda," the Witch snapped, "you're dramatics aren't going to help anybody."

The Major himself was standing pressed against the back wall of the tiny room which was, at present, filled with far more people than it was probably ever intended. At least the fortress the witches referred to as 'Kiamo Ko' had no shortage of rooms. It was something of a cross between a castle and a surprisingly well designed fortress, perched against the staggering jagged peaks of the mountains and protected on the other side by the small but loyal militia the Witch called 'the Winkie tribesmen.' It met with his approval, for the moment. Of course, it would be much _more _tolerable without all the damn winged monkeys that shuffled around squawking at him and pulling at his unfamiliar legs and trench-coat with their strange pawing hands.

One of the winged monkeys shuffled back and forth beside Eroica's bed, occasionally pausing to tug at the Witch's long black skirt. "Not now, Chistrey," she told it firmly, swatting it away with the end of her broom. "Liir!" she said suddenly, her head snapping up. She turned to the sullen pre-adolescent boy who sat on a chair in the corner, legs swinging back and forth, obviously bored.

"What?"

"Do the soldiers at Red Windmill coat the blades of their weapons with poison?"

He blinked at her dumbly for a moment, although Klaus could not tell if it was a matter of not understanding the question, or just being surprised that she had asked him at all. "I…"

"Well? Answer!" she snapped, "the man's life is at stake!"

Glinda made a small distressed noise, and Nanny placed her gnarled, ancient hands on the blonde woman's shoulders comfortingly. "Now, now, dearie, it wouldn't be the first time old Nanny had to save someone's life in this nasty old place—at least this one didn't go falling down the old fishing well."

The Major fumbled for a cigarette, wondering how much time was passing in the real world, and if he could even get back to the real world, if he needed to. On the bed, Eroica's face had turned a horrible chalky-white, almost grey in some places, and sweat seeped onto the blankets beneath him. It wasn't right.

Bloody hell, he'd _never _wanted the idiot to _die_. When the KGB had forced Eroica's red Maserati over the cliff in Greece he had watched with a terrible sort of sadness because, even if Eroica was an idiot for getting in the way of his missions, and a constantly infuriating headache with his perverted advances, and a selfish, unmanageable, sneaky, underhanded…

_It's not like he _never _helped you, _a voice in his head chided, and he shut his eyes in a grimace just as the Witch took a damp cloth from the one they called Nanny and began pressing it against Eroica's face. The Earl was breathing in ragged gasps and, though he showed no signs of consciousness, his eyes rolled wildly beneath closed lids.

The Major could not stop the flashes of memory that sped through his mind. So recently, the thief had suffered a beating at the hands of a KGB operative to get back the microfilm that he had lost. The first truly selfless act the Major had known Eroica capable of. He hadn't been able to summon his usual anger at the other man after that. Hell, he'd almost…

"Damn it!" Elphaba cursed, stamping her foot on the ground with surprising force. "What is this poison? It's like nothing I've ever seen before. Glinda, _think_! Did you learn anything about this in your sorcery lectures at Shiz?"

The blonde sorceress looked up at her tearfully, trembling all over. "I-I don't know, Elphie, that was all so long ago! It's been twelve years since then. A—and I don't really use what I've learned—signing one hundred party invitations in one go, travelling by bubble, you know—that sort of thing is all I do."

The Witch snorted derisively. "Lot of good that does us," she strode towards the doorway, pausing to look back at the strange lot huddled in the tiny room. "I have a book that _might _help us. In the mean time, I would suggest trying to jog Liir's memory. He's the one who heads the 'Commander Cherrystone fan club' around here, after all."

The heavy wooden door slammed closed after her, and slowly all eyes in the room fell to the boy Liir, who looked rather helpless. The Major inhaled deeply and was extraordinarily grateful for the cigarette. What the Earl needed was a _doctor_, not an old book, or a so-called 'magic' incantation.

"We need to get back to Earth," he said evenly, as evenly as he _could _since the idea that they really weren't _on _Earth still hadn't quite settled with him. But if this was some—truly bizarre—elaborate hoax, he doubted the Countess of Gloria would look quite so terrified as she did.

"But—But I don't know how, Klaus," she said. "the mirror—"

"_Major_," he growled, mostly out of habit from dealing with the Earl.

She put her hands on her hips, and pivoted around in her chair, looking up at him huffily. "Is that how you address your future mother-in-law!"

He nearly swallowed his cigarette, coughed furiously, staring at her in horror and disbelief. "Is everyone in this stupid world an insane-bloody-pervert!"

Without even thinking about it, Major Eberbach found himself storming towards the door, only to be stopped by Liir's annoyingly trepid voice. "Umm…Major Eberbach…Sir…I think I've remembered something about the poison. Commander Cherrystone mentioned it once, sort of off-handed-like. I didn't think they were planning to use it. Something about waiting for approval from the Emerald City."

Klaus turned back from the door, fighting admirably to keep from yelling. "What?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"W—well," Liir hesitated uneasily, irritating him further. If only it were one of his agents, he could have sent him to Alaska by now! "They mentioned the scarlet poppies that grow along the Munchkin River, around Bright Lettins and Old Pastoria, I think. Anyways, they said the scent of the poppies was poisonous, and there was also a way to make other sorts of poisons from the flower. Poisons to make a person sleep forever."

The Major snorted. "That sounds like something out of a children's story!"

"Nevertheless, it is true…_Major_," the Countess of Gloria said, standing slowly, her enormous skirts rustling around her. "I've heard of those flowers…I studied them at Shiz. They induce something like—well, I guess you might call it a 'coma' on Earth. But I'd never heard of them being used to actually _make_ a poison before. Nothing like this."

She turned and looked at her son worriedly, again wringing her hands. She sat back down, and looked as though she would start weeping again. The Major backed away, a pained grimace on his face.

_Hysterical women. Great. That's all I need._ _On top of being sucked into another universe through a cursed mirror, and ending up responsible for a civilian thief whom I loathe and is now deathly ill with no hope of finding a doctor, and with alien soldiers out to kill us._

The door reopened, and the Witch returned, a heavy book clutched in her grasp. The cover was leather, and extraordinarily gaudy. He regarded it with disdain, though was unable to stop thinking that it was clearly some sort of antique thing that Eroica would have loved to steal.

_Would have…_

The Major swallowed, displeased by the pang of discomfort that gave him. "The boy said that the soldiers spoke of making an experimental poison from scarlet poppies that grow along something called 'Munchkin River,'" he scowled darkly at the silliness of the name.

Elphaba frowned, opening the heavy tome. "I'll see what I can do, but…" her eyes squinted and she blinked, shaking her head. "The Grimmerie is…difficult to use. I'm not entirely certain of anything it says."

"You mean you can't trust it?" the Major asked, stamping out his cigarette on the floor and lighting another.

"No," she replied, turning a crumbling page. "I mean I can't _read _it. The words are blurred—twisted."

Glinda rose from her chair again and peered over Elphaba's shoulder at the book, then looked quickly away. "That makes me seasick," she groaned, staggering back to her chair. "Oh, Lurline, we can't do anything. Dorian's going to go into a coma, and never wake up, and then he's going to die, and it will all be my fault, and no one will know what's happened to him, and—"

"Would you shut up?" Klaus snapped. He turned back to the Witch and took the book from her. She stared in surprise, but said nothing, merely arching one black eyebrow. "I don't see what the problem is. I can read this fine," he said.

"Oh?" she asked.

"It's in English," he said, frowning. He realized that not everyone, particularly civilians, were fluent in seven languages, but considering that the Witch had been speaking to them in English since they had met he found it odd that she couldn't read it.

"Oh, I know what it is," the Countess said suddenly, "I could never read anything written on Earth. The letters all swirled around and gave me frightful headaches. Elphie, give him something to read that was written on Oz."

The Witch glared at her, seemingly annoyed by the nickname, but turned and left the room, returning a moment later with another old, though quiet a bit more battered, book. "It was one of Sarima's sisters' things, I think," she said, handing it to Klaus. "A classic. The _Oziad_."

He stared at the pages in confusion. The letters blurred and swam before his eyes, twisting and shivering so that he had to struggle in vain to make out the foggiest bits of jibberish! "What—"

"See?" Glinda said, taking the book from him. "Just get him to read the spells to you, Elphie."

"It's not that simple, we don't even know what to try…" Elphaba started, when a groan from the man on the bed silenced them all.

Glinda ran back to the bedside, clasping Dorian's hands. "Dori—" she abruptly stopped in a sort of stifled gasp. "E—Elphie," she choked. "He doesn't—Dorian doesn't have a pulse!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Once Nanny and Elphaba had established that Dorian _did_ indeed have a pulse, just an incredibly faint one, far too faint for the Countess in her panicked state to have felt, things began to quiet.

The Earl's pulse had dropped—horribly—but it had shown no sign of decreasing further, although how a bunch of self-proclaimed 'witches' could possibly know that Klaus had no idea. Nevertheless, they had slowly begun to disperse, first the boy and the monkey, then the tired old crone, and finally the one called Elphaba had simply risen without a word and disappeared from the small room as silently as a shadow.

The Countess of Red Gloria showed no signs of leaving, however. She had fallen asleep, half on her chair, and hair over the bed, still clutching Eroica's hand tightly. He had no idea why he was still there, watching them. He had no idea why he felt so horribly sickened at the idea that the Earl might really die lost out in this strange place.

He was nearing the last of his first package of cigarettes, and very thankful that he had brought another, when he heard the Countess murmuring quietly. At first he thought she was talking in her sleep, but as the whispered pleas slowly reached his ears he realized that she was awake.

"Dorian…please wake up. I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I'm sorry I left you all alone for so long. I'm sorry I didn't protect you from Price, or from Chuffery's skewed values. I really messed up. Maybe I wasn't old enough to have children. Maybe I was still the childish, self-centred Galinda inside. I…I just want…"

It made him uncomfortable to listen to something so personal, so he made his way to the doorway as quietly as he could, silently thankful that the Witch had left it part-way open when she had left. As he slipped from the darkened room, the last tearful murmurs he heard were "please, Dorian…please wake up."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Glinda met Elphaba late at night, in the grungiest, darkest, most forlorn of all the fortress' towers. "You have the whole place to choose from, and you live in a place like this," she said quietly, eyeing the cluttered work tables, and shelves of decaying volumes bound in leather. Papers were strewn everywhere, and the wax from candles dripped messily over their bronze holders and into the long thick cracks in the old tables.

The Witch Elphie had become did not turn from the small circular window that she stood at, as rigid and purposeful as a sentinel. "It would hardly have been decent to take one of Sarima's rooms, after…"

"Of course," the blonde agreed quickly. "I do apologise. But—" she clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. It was ridiculous how the girl she had been roommates with at Shiz, the girl whom she had spent so much time laughing about with Shenshen and Pfannee, the girl she had eventually struck up a tentative friendship with, could cause her to be so excited and so nervous now.

"What is it, Glinda?"

She was silent for a long time, fighting to gain sufficient self-control before she spoke, but her voice still came out in a fragile-sounding waver. "Is my son going to die, Elphie? Is there anything you can do to reverse this poison?"

Her green friend from so many years ago looked at her from beneath the wide brim of her tall black hat. Her expression belied nothing. "I don't know. I thought you were supposed to be the good witch, Glinda. You're the one who had the formal education for this type of thing, after all."

"But—but—" she felt like an idiot. She couldn't look at Elphaba. She wasn't even sure what she was trying, and failing, to articulate. "Well, you have the Grimmerie."

"That old book is hardly a help," the Witch replied. "It is powerful, yes, but surprisingly unhelpful in my experience."

"Well, maybe with Klaus being able to read it—"

"Glinda, do you have a point?"

She couldn't help the hurt that she knew lay naked on her face. She couldn't keep up the false cheery smiles any longer. "You sound like you don't even care! You accused me of not caring for others—but listen to you! I may have been a snob, I admit that now, but you, Elphie, you've become a callous bitch!"

"You don't need to end every sentence with an exclamation mark, Glinda, I can hear you perfectly," the emerald face remained impassive, and unperturbed. "I've been witness to so much death by now…how do you expect me to react to one more passing, and that of a stranger, no less?"

"Damn you, Elphaba Thropp that's my child!" the words erupted out of her tightened throat in a strangled cry that was far louder than she had intended, and things scurried and shuffled in the shadows. She felt her anger swell. "You just isolate yourself out here in the Vinkus, with your wolves and your winged monkeys. Why winged monkeys, Elphaba? I know you were always the atheistic one, but now it seems as though you've decided to make yourself God. Are you trying to find a soul for yourself in all these winged monsters?"

"I never _wanted _a soul, Glinda," the Witch replied, though her tone had hardened, the words sounding sharp. "Never had one. Never wanted one. Besides, this isn't about me. This is your own guilt talking—isn't it?" she asked, calming down slightly, and finally moving away from the window.

By now Glinda was trembling all over. She couldn't stop, even when the freezing, claw-like hands dug into her shoulders fiercely and shook her. "That's it, right? You've spent too much time hanging around Nessarose, and maybe even my father, when I was gone, and now you're worried about _your _soul, or something like it." The Witch suddenly seemed amused. "My, Glinda, I didn't know you put that much thought into such things. I thought you prayed 'not particularly genuinely,' that's how I seem to remember you putting it."

Glinda, however, did not find it amusing. She wrenched herself out of Elphaba's grip, violently shoving the other woman back, and stumbled against the cold stone wall for support. "No…I mean I did end up taking care of Nessa after you left. But that isn't…" she covered her eyes with her hand, ashamed to feel cold tears. "You don't understand. I thought I had paid for my mistakes with the loss of my husband. Why is this happening?"

"You're asking me?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow, but she no longer looked amused. "I've never understood how the universe is supposed to work. Look at my life…look at all the people who suffered just because I was trying to help."

The Witch sighed deeply. "You…you were always working so hard to deserve all of the privileges you've had. Almost as though you felt…Oh. Oh, Glinda, my pretty, you don't feel guilty do you? For always having it a bit better than everyone else?"

Glinda's head was swimming, and she was overcome with grief and exhaustion, the tears sliding slowly down her cheeks. She must have been hearing things, because Elphaba hadn't used that old nickname in over a decade. And that tone, sounding so kind, so…sorry. That couldn't be Elphaba, it was impossible, she thought drowsily, as she slid down the cold stone wall and crumpled to a heap on the floor.

"Glinda? Glinda?"

She did not hear the worried calls, or feel the strong green hands that shook her.

"Oh Glinda, you traitor…you're not supposed to make me feel sorry for you. Well, I won't do it. Besides, everyone else I've promised to help has ended up worse off for my interference."

But the good witch of the North did not hear that, either. Somewhere, somehow, she was sitting in the back of a carriage deep in the Emerald City, waiting, and waiting, and waiting for a friend she had fallen in love with, who was not going to return.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The morning was grey and dismal. The Winkie militia marched with their primitive spears and pikes outside the fortress walls. Klaus could see some of them through the narrow window of his room. They would not be adequate protection against the slightly more modern-looking Gale Force soldiers stationed at the town of Red Windmill. If so many people really did want the Witch dead, he wasn't certain why she had not been killed already. He didn't like not knowing things, and here, in this strange mirror-world, he did not know anything.

The Major paced around the small room, and checked it for electronic surveillance, the presence of which was extremely unlikely, but he nevertheless berated himself for not checking the night before. He felt uncomfortable in the alien place, and doubled his morning exercise routine, trying to take his mind off the agitation. The worry.

_God damn it, I'm not supposed to be worried about Eroica! _he thought up several curses until he'd finished his exercises and sighed, running a hand through his hair. _It was his own fault, for showing up uninvited at my wedding! He should have known something like this would happen!_

Not entirely satisfied with that way of reasoning, the Major straightened his uniform and placed a hand on the door…wondering what to expect from his second day in the madhouse of Kiamo Ko.

The great hall had a long table, probably capable of seating twenty or more, but the only ones sitting at it were Nanny and Liir. They were nibbling at bread and cheese in perfect silence. As he approached the boy looked up, but the old woman appeared not to notice.

"Uh Major…" the boy began hesitantly.

He was irritated, but at the same time relieved that this boy, unlike the creepy children he'd met in Tehran, only seemed to be looking for strong role-model. "'Major' will do," he snapped.

"Oh _great_," came Glinda's high-pitched voice, and the click of her shoes over the stone floors. "So we have the _Witch_, the _Major_, and the _Nanny_. It's like no one wants to use their real names around here!"

"No kidding, _Ga_linda," Elphaba's rather bemused voice responded, from the opposite end of the hallway, as both women entered the dining hall at the same time. Their eyes met across the long table, and even Klaus could feel the tension boiling between them.

The blonde witch turned away, walking towards Nanny and Liir. "You were about to ask the Major something, dear? Don't let us interrupt," she said in a falsely cheerful voice that grated on Klaus' nerves.

Even Liir looked uncomfortable, as Elphaba also walked over, and the two witches continued their glaring match over his head.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Countess remained with Eroica for the rest of the day, while Elphaba studied her books, presumably looking for a cure. Nanny sat in a chair by the window wrapped in a shawl and mumbling about how she was too old and too busy enjoying her senility to do anything for anybody else. The Major, in turn, ended up spending most of the day exploring the vast stone fortress, mapping out each hallway and corridor in his mind for future reference.

Liir followed him, and the Major showed considerably restraint (he thought) at not loosing his temper with the boy, but after four hours he couldn't answer any more of the questions (most of which didn't make a lot of sense to him anyways, since he had never been to anything called 'the Emerald City' or met anyone called 'the Wizard.') He left the boy to care for the old woman and began up the stairs towards the room where they had placed Eroica.

He heard shouting before he reached the top.

"I can't! I can't look at him anymore, Elphie! Not like this!"

The Countess stood with the Witch a few feet from the Earl's room, clearly exhausted, and in tears. "I can't sit there and talk to him like he's listening when he doesn't even know I'm there! I can't do it!" she turned away from Elphaba, running away from the Witch.

A door slammed shut somewhere, and Klaus turned to the green skinned woman who merely shrugged. "She's just being melodramatic. She'll calm down after a few hours of sleep," she said sensibly. "I've found something, but it'll take time to make the antidote, and if it will work or not is anybody's guess."

"I'll watch the Earl," he told her.

"If you want," she said absently, turning away. But she paused in mid-step, turning her head slightly to glance over her shoulder at him. "Thank you for tolerating Liir today."

He said nothing, since he wasn't sure he _had _tolerated the boy all that well.

"He may come off as rather…peculiar," she admitted. "But he can't help it. He's never had anything like a father…" she seemed to be deliberating whether or not to say more, but then stopped, and left him with that.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

It was dark. Very dark, and the darkness had layers to it, as though he was sinking in water. Sinking in water. Yes, that's what it felt like. Sinking in water without any air. He was suffocated, drowning, falling away from the light.

The pressure against his chest was so incredibly heavy that he had stopped feeling any pain, but a sort of numb heaviness. He couldn't even think. He couldn't remember his name, or what he was doing in this strange bottomless ocean, sinking towards the black, black depths.

_Isn't there…something I'm supposed to do?_

_Wake up…somehow?_

_Why…?_

The shadows had become a heavy blanket, and he no longer felt anything else, but the slight pull of drifting downwards, and the very comforting dark.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach stared at the perfectly still figure on the bed. He seemed like an entirely different person. Surely, Eroica could not be this still and quiet, even in death…

_Death…_

He took a deep drag off his cigarette and banished those unwelcome thoughts from his mind. It was horrible, though, to sit in that tiny, grey room for hours, with nothing at all to distract him from Eroica's near-lifeless form. He felt all sorts of unpleasant twinges of worry and regret, and fought to transform them into feelings of irritation and anger.

_How _dare _that useless wanker just lie there like that! _

"Wake up," he told the inert figure in a harsh, irritable voice, for not the first time that evening. "End this—this silly little melodrama!"

Not even a twitch.

The Major clenched his hands tightly. "I said wake up, you idiot! Faggot! Thief! Degenerate! Wake up so I can yell at you for ruining my wedding! Do you hear me you limey pervert? Wake up!"

He fell back to the hard wooden chair, hanging his head. There was no movement from the man in the bed, who was scarcely even breathing. _God, what's wrong with me? Yelling at someone in a coma! _He finished his cigarette, then turned and paced around the small room several times.

"Major?" Glinda's voice called from the doorway. He turned to see the Countess standing there, looking weak and sick. "Liir says Elphie's coming…he says she thinks she's got the antidote."

"Good," he nodded, feeling more relief then he cared to admit.

"But…it might not work," even as she spoke, the Witch pushed the door open behind her, holding a vial of something smouldering and murky.

Elphaba wrinkled her nose at the stench. "I'm not making any promises. I've never had any luck saving anyone else's life."

The Countess looked as though she was going to say something, but stopped, and went back to wringing her hands and staring worriedly at the floor. The Major moved out of the way, and allowed the Witch to reach Eroica.

He felt a stab of anxiety deep in his chest and fought it angrily away. _This may not work. You have to be prepared. _He clenched his hands into fists at his sides as Elphaba poured the alien medicine down the Earl's throat, and waited.

The Witch's expression changed, her brows drew closer together, her eyes flickered over Eroica's still body. She grabbed the Earl's wrist in a fast, frantic movement, and the Major found himself reaching a hand to feel for a pulse on Lord Gloria's neck.

The skin felt unnaturally cold against his hand, and Eroica lay still. Too still. He felt a coldness wash through him, a dark sinister emptiness. "No…it can't be," he looked down at the still form, and Elphaba looked up and met his gaze, her face no longer a mask of stoicism, but twisted with grief.

"This isn't happening…It can't be…"

**To be Continued in Chapter Eight: Stranger Things Have Happened**


	8. Chapter 8: Stranger Things Have Happened

**Chapter Eight**

**Stranger Things Have Happened**

"_We're entwined in ways we don't even understand. I find the idea of English roses twirled around a hard German wire to be rather delicious with its sadistic overtones. Don't you?"_

_-Dorian, to Klaus (Love in Greece)_

_This isn't happening…_

"God _knows _he's been nothing but a pain in the neck since he first stole that damn pumpkin pants painting from me! Always interfering with my missions! Making bloody indecent proposals! I don't even _like _him," the Major heard himself saying. "But he can't just _die _here. It—it isn't decent. This isn't even _Earth_."

The Witch kept looking down at the body on the bed, then to him, then to Glinda, who had gone so pale it was hard to believe she wasn't going to faint at any second. "It's just one more failure, on my part," she muttered finally. "There's nothing more I can do for him."

"What?" the Countess said in a hoarse whisper. "You mean—? You can't mean…"

"What do you want me to do?" Elphaba said, but her voice had lost it's sharp edge. She sounded quiet, even subdued. "I couldn't stop my lover from dying. I couldn't stop my sister from dying. I couldn't stop my mentor from dying."

The Major felt the cold pit gnawing and twisting in his stomach. He clutched the bedpost, the same thought hammering through his mind again and again. _This can't be real! The idiot survived countless run-ins with the KGB! He's successfully mangled _how _many NATO Intelligence operations? He can't just die like this! _

_He can't! It's ridiculous! I won't have it!_

But then Glinda collapsed on the bed in front of him, sobbing, and it seemed as though it really was the end of the infamous English thief, Eroica.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

His dreams that night were horrible. Blank and empty and white. Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach walked through the vacuum, dressed in his uniform. His Magnum was clenched in his hand, but when he raised his arm it turned into sand and slipped through his fingers.

_Stupid dreams. What's the point of the damn idiot things, anyways? _He scowled.

The figure appeared in front of him much the same way that people in the waking world don't; long golden curls, and that infuriating red sleeveless shirt… The Major swallowed. Just the person he didn't want to see in his dreams—_ever_—but least of all _tonight_.

"Eroica! What are you doing in my dreams, you stupid bugger? Do you have to harass me even here?"

"Pardon?" the Earl turned to face him, the blue eyes annoyingly wide and frightened. "Excuse me, Major, but this happens to be _my _dream you're interrupting!"

"No," he retorted, rolling his eyes, "this is _my _dream and you are a very unwelcome guest! Now get out of here so that I wake up. And it had better be morning when I do!"

The thief looked at him for a moment, and then laughed, "Oh, my dear Major, you're always so perfectly yourself. I suppose that's what I lo—"

"Shut up! Not a word of that foppish nonsense! I won't have it here. This is MY dream!"

"No, it's MY dream, so I'll say whatever I want, thank you very much!" Eroica replied stubbornly, placing his hands on his hips. A sly smile slowly crossed his face. Klaus most decidedly did not like the look of it. "In fact…" the Earl said slowly. "Maybe I'll even kiss you!" he leaned forwards suggestively.

"NEIN!" the Major shouted, jumping backwards. "What do you think you're doing, you degenerate?"

"Hey, it's MY dream, I can do whatever I want!"

"Like hell you can!"

Eroica regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, before sighing dramatically. "You are always yourself, Major. So wholly insensitive. But then, if iron stopped being iron I suppose it really would be the end…"

"Stop spouting that tripe and get out of my dream, you bastard!"

The blue eyes widened in surprise. "But this is a bit…_too _like you, even for a dream."

Klaus felt a headache coming on. Why hadn't this stupid dream ended already? Why couldn't he dream about tanks?

"You would rather dream about _tanks_?" Eroica asked incredulously, then he smiled. "Well, I must admit that's not very flattering…but very entirely like you, Major."

"…You heard that?" he asked in confusion.

"This _is _a dream, remember?"

"Ja…Yes, but…" he closed his eyes, not that it actually blocked anything out.

"You do really seem to be here," the Earl continued. "I mean the real you. Really."

"Stop saying 'really,' this is confusing enough as it is. God damn dream!"

The thief smirked. "Aye, aye. Captain."

He glared back at him. "I'm a _Major_."

For the first time he felt a twinge of pain at the stupid dream. This man he was looking at, _talking _to…this wasn't real. He would never have these stupid conversations again. Ever.

Hell, he would have to explain to the Earl's men when he got home. _If _he got home.

The Eroica that stood before him looked confused. "What…Explain _what_, Major?"

He found himself staring at the stupid dream in surprise. _This shouldn't be bothering me. I shouldn't care. I spent the last nine years wishing this man would vanish off the face of the Earth. _

"Major? What's going on?" Eroica walked towards him. "Tell me!"

He found himself staring at the dream with sudden sadness. But it was stupid. It was just a dream.

_You're already dead._

Before his eyes, Eroica's expression turned frightened, terrified—as vivid and clear as in the real world. The blue eyes widened, growing round and scared, and he looked up at the Major, who found he suddenly couldn't back away. Not because the dream wouldn't let him, but because he felt—what? Guilty? Sad?

"Don't say that, Major! Even in a dream, it isn't funny!"

"Gott…" This was horrible. Why was he dreaming this?

"And—and I can't be dead. I mean, I'm right _here_, aren't I?"

"You idiot, you're a _dream_," he said, though it lacked his usual vehemence, and he knew it.

"But I'm…I'm not dead. I _know _I'm not dead. Can't you do something, Major?"

"God damn it, Eroica! What do you expect me to do?"

Eroica looked up at him, suddenly looking far more helpless and scared than he ever had in real life. The Earl, for all of his annoying perversions, was not a weakling and he had never allowed the Major to see him so frightened.

It troubled Klaus more than he wanted to think.

So maybe he _did _feel guilty.

"You're a civilian. And a NATO contractor," _sort of_, he said slowly. "And no one under Iron Klaus' protection dies! And I still have to yell at you for ruining my wedding, and getting us lost in this stupid world. You can't get off so easily just by conveniently dying! I won't allow it!"

Lord Gloria smiled slowly, his eyes lighting up, and Klaus felt another stab of the now-familiar pain of loss. "I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Tank Commander!"

"It's Ma—"

Before he could get out of the way, Eroica had flung his arms around his neck, and laughing, kissed him on the cheek. Flailing in panic, Klaus reached up to push the thief away from him, but his hands felt only air.

The next moment, he woke up.

He woke up. It was still pitch black, but he stumbled out of the narrow bed anyways, shivering, and dressed. He lit a cigarette almost immediately, which for once failed to help, so he went ahead and did more exercises, until he finally realized that the unpleasant feeling of the dream was not going to go away so easily.

Blindly, he stumbled through the dark hallways, trying to remember everything he had seen the day before with the boy Liir. The day before…it seemed so much more distant.

Eventually, he made it to the room. His heart racing, he stepped inside.

They had not moved the Earl's body. Through the light of the full moon that spilled in the window he could clearly see the familiar face, framed by long golden curls. The Countess was still there as well, he noticed with surprise, curled up on the floor, as though she had come to see her son again and collapsed there.

He slowly made his way around the narrow bed towards her. He didn't even particularly like the woman, she was an annoying idiot, much like her son, but still, it seemed disgusting to leave her in the room with the…body.

Feeling the cold grip of the dream seize him again, the Major stopped, his eyes falling back to the still figure on the bed. The image of the dream Eroica haunted him, unsettling with its realism. Without quite knowing what he was doing, he had stepped closer to the bed.

Studying the face again, the Major felt something else tugging at his mind. It seemed…off. The face was pale, it was true. But it wasn't quite the same sickening grey-blue of a corpse. It was wrong, somehow, he felt, frowning. Iron Klaus was no stranger to death or dead bodies, and something about this one was definitely, definitely not as it should be. The longer he studied the body, the stronger the feeling became.

Finally, he reached out and touched one of the Earl's hands. The coldness sent a jolt of surprise through him, but he ignored it. The hand was cold, but there was still something strangely off about it. Slowly, he lifted the arm.

And realized what it was.

"What are you _doing_?" a strangled voice gasped behind him.

_Great. _The Major turned his head slightly to see the Countess rising shakily off the ground. She looked horrified, and perhaps not without cause, after all, the Major himself could not entirely explain his actions.

He shook his head. "I don't know. But I do know that something about this isn't right."

The Countess' face changed from disgust to confusion. "What do you mean?"

He turned back to the Earl's body. "I've seen a lot of dead bodies. This isn't what they look like. The skin colour changes more dramatically. It isn't just pale—as the liver decomposes the skin becomes bluish…and rigor mortis ought to have set in two or three hours after the death, but it hasn't. And…it doesn't smell like a dead body."

Glinda had gone from looking confused to looking vaguely ill. "I don't understand. What are you telling me? Are you saying Dorian isn't dead?"

He shook his head. It would be needlessly cruel to raise her hopes. "I don't know."

The dream came back to him. Eroica, Lord Gloria, in his dream had seemed so real. But that was a _dream_, it was absolute lunacy. Dreams were dreams, sometimes they were vivid and lucid, but they still meant nothing…

_On Earth, _he reminded himself. But this _wasn't _Earth, it was Oz. The rules were different here. And as much as he _loathed _it with every fibre of his being, he _had _to recognize the differences. He still had to learn the rules here.

"I had a…" it was going to sound idiotic. Like something Eroica would say, and he stopped himself, but now the Countess was looking at him, watching him carefully. He turned and glared at her. "I dreamt about the Earl. Does that mean anything?"

She seemed surprised. "I wouldn't know," she said in a tiny voice. "Maybe that you're grieving…?"

He sighed in aggravation. That wasn't it! The dream had been different, strange. It bothered him in the same way Eroica's body did. It wasn't _right_. "Listen, I didn't like your son. I wasn't his friend, despite whatever lies he may have told you. I've spent the last nine years wishing he would just disappear!"

He saw the tears welling up in her wide blue eyes, eyes that were far too much like the Earl's for comfort, and looked away, but he couldn't afford to waste time trying to think of some 'nice' way of explaining himself.

The Countess looked to her son with an expression of such sadness that the Major was momentarily startled. "He told me he loved you," she said softly.

He groaned. "He tells everyone that, the damn pervert!"

_Tells, not told._

_Damn it, you can't afford to loose your mind like this. There could be other explanations. It could just be a stupid dream. Rigor mortis might take longer to set in on Oz. Maybe it hasn't even been three hours, you don't know how long you were asleep._

But no. He knew what he felt. What he _knew_. And besides, what he had told the Eroica in his dream was _right_. He didn't let anyone who was his responsibility die.

The Countess looked at him, then at her son. "If you really think there's something wrong…I'll go and get Elphie."

Once she had slipped from the room, Klaus found himself alone, again, with the perfectly still body. But the more he looked at it, the more he was certain what he felt was not his imagination. He snorted. "Bloody idiot, can't even die right."

A few minutes later, Glinda returned with a very puzzled Elphaba. The green woman looked at him curiously. "I don't understand you," Elphaba said. "One minute, you're calling the Earl all sorts of nasty names and raving about how much you hate him and how he's the scum of the Earth…and the next you're obsessed with bringing him back from the dead!"

He glared at her, but she didn't flinch. It would be so much easier if he were among his subordinates. He could send them to Alaska. Here, there wasn't even an Alaska to exile people to!

"I do not believe the Earl is dead," he said flatly. "As he is merely a civilian thief and has a record of co-operating with NATO operations, it is my responsibility as an officer to ensure his well being."

She gave him a dubious look that he would have banished one of his agents to Alaska until the end of time for. But alas, no agents, no Alaska. He pulled out a cigarette and smoked furiously for a moment, trying to concentrate on something other than the present situation.

"So you don't think he's dead?" she looked at the body on the bed again. "He looks dead to…you're right, there is something off about this."

"What?" Glinda asked, looking around in confusion. "What is it?"

The Witch looked at her steadily for a moment. "Glinda…how many dead bodies have you seen?"

The blonde was startled for a moment. "Um…well, not many. I saw Nessa…'s feet," she said meekly. "And Chuffrey, at the funeral. And…and that soldier we passed, on the way here."

The Witch only nodded. "And what did that soldier smell like?"

The Countess paled. "…bad."

"And what does this smell like?"

"But—Elphie—that man was all cut up—"

"That was part of it, but trust me, Glinda, death has a smell…a feel…" she paused, walking closer to the body. "This doesn't feel like death."

"What then?"

"I don't know. Perhaps the potion I mixed, when combined with the soldiers' poison, induced a coma with life signs so low we can't feel them. I've heard of such things."

The Major nodded. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility. There had been cases of poisons on Earth that had similar effects, especially in the middle ages when technology had not been advanced enough to detect weaker life signs. Besides, stranger things had happened.

This week, mostly to him.

"So if that's the case what do we do about?" Glinda asked in a sort of awed whisper. "How do we wake him up?"

The Witch was only able to shrug helplessly. "I don't know. I don't know…" she paused for a moment, then looked up. "But Nanny might."

"Your old Ama?" Glinda asked in surprise.

"That old crone?" the Major scowled.

She glared at them both. "Nanny may be near her centennial, but she does have her uses, you know. She's saved Liir's life when I thought he was dead."

"Well what are you waiting for?" the Countess asked. "Go wake her up!"

"Nanny's an old woman, she needs her sleep!"

"She needs her sleep? This is an emergency!" Glinda exclaimed.

The Witch sighed, sounding supremely tired and annoyed.

But she went to wake the old woman.

An hour later, the room was crowded once more, with Nanny seated on the small wooden chair, the full story and all of their thoughts on the matter having been related to her. Klaus didn't put much faith in the old hag, but as he could think of no other way to get help for the Earl outside of returning to Earth, he remained silent. And glared.

Nanny scowled at them. "It shouldn't take me to do all this," she said, yawning. "Nanny's far too old and senile to be resurrecting people left, right and centre."

"You didn't resurrect Liir, we just didn't realize he wasn't yet dead, and that's what's happened with Glinda's son…we think."

"Your son?" the old woman asked, looking from the Earl to the Countess suspiciously. "He looks a bit old to be your son, doesn't he?"

"It's complicated..." the Countess said evasively.

The old woman sighed huffily. "No one tells Nanny anything." Slowly, she got to her feet, which much support from Elphaba, and shuffled over to the bed to get a closer look at the Earl. By this time, it was near sunrise, and the sky outside was a lighter shade of dark blue. Several candles had been lit around the room, almost giving it the feel of a some sort of medieval wake.

"_I have been immersing myself in Renaissance culture and loving it," _Eroica had told him in Rome. The Major swallowed and turned away, lighting a cigarette as Nanny felt for the Earl's pulse, and bent low over his chest, appearing to listen intently. Then she lifted one of his arms and watched how pliant it was, as he had done early.

"Hm. Yes, yes, its Nanny's opinion that there's some question about this one, that's for sure. Back in Rush Margins we used to bury this sort with bells hooked up above their graves, and tied with a string that went into the coffin so that if they woke up, they could pull the string and we would hear the bell ringing and dig them up again."

"D—Did any of them wake up? Did the bells ever ring?" Glinda tearfully asked.

"Oh yes," Nanny replied simply, appearing to not notice the mother's overwhelming grief. "Lots of times."

"So what do we do?" Elphaba asked, finally.

"What do you think you do?" Nanny replied, scowling at them all. "It shouldn't take Nanny to tell you this. Why does no one know anything these days? You _wait_."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The next two days were spent waiting. Elphaba watched it all from a distance, preferring to remain isolated in her tower, working on finishing her winged monkeys, who had been neglected as she concocted her 'antidote' for Glinda's son. They were still rather clumsy at flying, but improving with surprising speed, all things considered, and seemed much more willing to learn how to use their wings than how to speak.

Glinda spent the time sitting beside Dorian's bed, growing paler and sadder every hour that rolled by with no change in her son. She chattered away constantly for the first day, as though that might help, which seemed to annoy Klaus as much as it annoyed Elphaba, and he spent large portions of the day with Liir, which pleased Elphaba although she barely paused in her work to recognize the feeling. As he had with Nanny's arrival, Liir seemed to enjoy the attention, but she had no more time to feel regret over the years that had gone by since she had come to Kiamo Ko.

Although he seemed slightly annoyed by Liir's presence (then again, Elphaba reminded herself, Klaus seemed slightly annoyed with anyone's presence) he appeared to tolerate the boy. If he recognized him as his half-brother, the Witch could not say, for she never spent enough time watching them from the shadows to hear what they said.

Nanny checked in on Dorian from time to time, always with the same verdict: not quite dead yet. She spent the rest of her time dozing in her chair by the window, and concocting a frothy stew-like substance she planned to feed Glinda's son when and if he should recover.

What had seemed like joyous news to Glinda at first, slowly seemed to be turning into a sort of torture for her, Elphaba noticed. At first she ignored it. She was still angry with Glinda, and didn't largely care what happened to her son, but eventually, and despite herself, she asked Nanny to take the Countess of Red Gloria back to her room and get her to go to sleep.

When the so-called 'good witch' finally slept, Klaus took her place, watching the Earl. Elphaba noticed this with some interest, although she did not wish to devote a lot of energy to the puzzle that surrounded the relationship between the two men.

Since Dorian had been at the Major's wedding, she had at first assumed they were friends. But that no longer seemed the case, even with only one of them conscious, as the Major's comments about the Earl, when they came, failed largely to be anything other than insulting. Nevertheless, he refused to leave the man's side when Glinda or Nanny was not there to watch him. It was puzzling, and Elphaba found herself wishing that Glinda's son would recover just so that she could observe more of the strange relationship.

She got her wish at midnight on the second day.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Klaus sat back in the small, uncomfortable chair and fought the urge to light another cigarette. He only had a few left. He hadn't really slept since his dream two days earlier. Each time he tried, his sleep was shallow and unsatisfying. Eventually, he had given up trying.

Dorian lay in the bed across from him, perfectly still. Would he wake up? Or would he starve to death before he had the chance? This wasn't twentieth century Earth. There were no hospitals, and the closest they had to a doctor was a crazy old crone who, according to Elphaba, was almost a hundred years old and liked to pretend she was senile when she clearly wasn't.

_Bloody madhouse. Bloody idiots. _

He looked back the Earl's still form and growled angrily. "You're supposed to wake up now, you bloody idiot!"

Impossibly, he heard the faintest groan of response from the figure on the bed. He paused, alert, unsure if he had heard or imagined the sound. Then, as he watched, Eroica's fingers twitched. It was incredibly little movement, but incredibly _more _than the Earl had moved in the past forty-eight hours, and the Major quickly lit the candles closest to the bed and watched.

The Earl's eyelashes fluttered weakly, and he made a very quiet, almost inaudible, groaning noise. Klaus felt his heart thud annoyingly loud with relief, but even as he watched, the Earl seemed to be slipping back into the grasp of the death-like sleep.

"Damn it, Eroica!" he shouted as loudly as he could, reasoning that it couldn't hurt, and if Eroica did die now, he wanted a last chance to yell at the thief, "You're supposed to wake up now, you degenerate! You've just been lying here for the past three days! It's indecent! It's despicable! And after you got us into this mess, too! I said wake up!"

He heard a noise at the door, and was aware of Glinda standing there, eyes wide with shock. She almost ran over, but he yelled over his shoulder. "Get the Witch, and the old hag!"

Eroica's eyes were almost fully open by this time, looking hazy and unfocused. He heard the Countess hesitate in the doorway, and then the sound of her shoes hitting the castle's stone floor as she ran towards the Witch's tower.

He concentrated on the Earl. Should he be keeping the man awake, or would that make things worse? The thief was evidently trying to say something, but was too weak to work his mouth properly. His hands twitched slightly where they lay on the covers.

Despite himself, the Major was glad, and couldn't help smiling ever-so slightly.

"I knew an annoying wanker like you wouldn't die so easily."

Glinda ran back into the room, followed by Elphaba and tired-looking Nanny. "Nanny always has to do everything around here," the old woman complained, then she saw the Earl and hobbled forwards. "Glinda, your son is recovering. I'm glad dear, you know you and Elphaba were always so close in school, I felt like your Ama as well. Well, don't just stand there, Elphaba, go and get that stew I was making!"

There was chaos for the next several hours, of which Klaus remained carefully distant. Once it became apparent that Eroica was going to recover, he silently left the room, as Nanny was going to feed the Earl and he didn't know what else, maybe bathe him? The Major shuddered, he really _did not _want to know the details, so he strode along the fortress' parapets and smoked the second-to-last of his cigarettes.

Afterwards, the Countess found him and told him that the Earl had fallen back asleep, but that Nanny said it was a regular enough sleep, and that he was on the way towards a full recovery. The Major didn't entirely trust Nanny's diagnosis, but said nothing. The Earl slept for the rest of night, and all of the following day, waking only for a few moments at a time.

Nevertheless, the Major was more pleased with this turn of events then he would ever admit.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Glinda sat with Elphaba in an uneasy silence. She looked at the teacup resting in front of her, it was beautiful, delicate, an antique with an intricate pattern. Clearly, it had belonged to the castle's previous owners. Glinda admired its loveliness and delicacy and silently pitied it for having to belong to a woman who would never appreciate—or even notice—it's beauty.

The ornate teacup made a good distraction. A part of her wanted to run back to Dorian and make sure he was really okay. Again. But another part of her told her to leave well enough alone, for the moment. Elphaba seemed to think it was wise to leave Dorian with the Major for the time being. She would think about that later.

There were other things that demanded her attention at the moment.

"Are you going to tell Liir?" she asked at last.

"Tell Liir what?" the Witch asked.

"That the Major is his brother…half-brother," she said quietly.

Elphaba shrugged. "I can't imagine why I should."

"But…he should know," the sorceress continued, then stopped.

The Witch arched one thin eyebrow. "What, you think I'll just tell him and all of a sudden we'll be one happy family? I'm not even certain Liir knows _I'm _his mother. At times he seems to know it, and then he'll go and call me 'Auntie Witch' no matter how many times I've told him not to. That was what Sarima's children called me," she added by way of explanation seeing Glinda's confused expression. Elphaba sighed.

"He's never had a family, really. He' made it clear to me many times that he wants a father. He has no idea Fiyero was his. Well, he said once that a magic fish told him. But, you know… He's never really had a mother, either," she added, with only the slightest sound of regret, Glinda noted. "But there's nothing that can be done about that. I've never liked children, Glinda. And as for telling him about Klaus…what good would _that _accomplish?"

"It would be admitting you're Klaus' mother," the blonde said quietly. "Forgive me for saying so, but you don't…"

"Act like it?" the Witch finished. "Why should I? He's a thirty year old man for Lurline's sake! He hardly needs a mother. He didn't even know who I was until five days ago!"

"But still…" the petite sorceress struggled to press on, unsure herself of what she wanted to say. "But still…it would make Liir happier. He's an awfully gloomy child, Elphie," the Witch grunted noncommittally, "and it would be a step in the right direction."

"And who are _you _to tell me what the right direction is, Glinda? Didn't you abandon your son on Earth too for the last—what was it, twenty, Earth years?"

Glinda bit her lip. She didn't want to think about Dorian at the moment, or talk about what had happened with her family, least of all to this Elphaba. It had already become apparent that the Witch who sat across from her had no desire to become acquainted with her estranged son, and from what little she knew about the German officer she doubted he would care.

Maybe it was for the best. They had to be the two most difficult people to deal with in all of Oz. Or Earth. Still, she couldn't help thinking that the frosty indifference with which they all seemed to regard each other wasn't quite right.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Klaus looked over at the sleeping figure on the bed.

Dorian was curled into a ball like a cat, and perfectly still. One couldn't even be sure he was breathing, just at a glance. That thought sent an unwelcome shiver of unease through the Major. His mind was already racing with a hundred things that could have happened—most of them being "you can't really bring someone back from the dead—even if they aren't quite dead yet—he's—" so that he wasn't even conscious of crossing the room until he was standing right over the thief.

_It's nothing, he's fine…_God damn it, why did he care so much about the damn bugger anyway?

_Oh give it up, Major, _another voice inside his head taunted. He shut that one up quickly enough. The Earl was still lying there, perfectly still and silent.

_Just…_

He moved one hand slowly towards his neck, to feel for a pulse, just to reassure himself. It wasn't like him to be this worried, the Major frowned. Wasn't like him at all. But he hadn't exactly been himself lately, had he? He mused, feeling the soft curls brush against the back of his knuckles. Coming through those damn "Mirrors." Coming to this "other world." That had been his first mistake.

Eroica made a small pleased sound when he brushed his neck—which was more than enough proof of life—and the Major quickly pulled his hand away. The Earl drew himself into an even tighter ball and seemed to sink deeper into sleep.

The Major felt another in what had been a long series of pangs of uneasiness that seemed to stretch back—how many years?—at least as long as he had known the Earl. Maybe even more. And he still hadn't left the damn thief's room!

_Well…what if something happens in the night? What if the poison resurfaces? What if he falls back into that limbo state? What if he wakes up and panics at being alone in a strange place—Christ, the idiot's afraid of the dark, for crying out loud! _

_What if he dies?_

"Yes…definitely not myself," the Major murmured. Now he was starting to get a headache, and he was exhausted. Slowly, he sank to the floor beside the Earl's bed and lit his last cigarette. Dorian murmured something incoherent in his sleep.

When had he started thinking of Eroica as "Dorian?" He held his head in his hands.

This was bad.

**To be Continued in Chapter Nine: Unlikely Assassins**


	9. Chapter 9: Unlikely Assassins

**Chapter Nine**

**Unlikely Assassins**

"_Elphaba had a _good _voice. It was controlled and feeling, not histrionic. He listened through to the end, and the song faded into the hush of a respectful pub. … but nobody would sing again, because she had done so well." _

--_Wicked: The Life and Times by Gregory Maguire, page 151_

The Quadling Mirror hung suspended above her, taunting her with its gleaming reflective surfaces—its illusion of clarity. The Witch did not like to look at it with too much concentration. She had not cared for it even after discovering the gateway nature of the special glass—the bridge that it formed between the world of Oz and that strange foreign land Glinda called ' the Earth.' For it showed her a good many things, besides the gateway, and very seldom her reflection. It had never shown her anything she particularly wanted to look at.

She studied the mirror for a long time. Careful to keep her eyes drifting around the circumference, never focusing too hard on the misty glass. How in all the worlds had Galinda of the Arduennas of the Uplands…no, Glinda of the Ruby Castle of Red Gloria…and her pompous idiot of a husband come across one?

The mirror…she carefully ran one green finger down the looking glass. The talent of the mysterious Quadling lover of both Melina and Frex, and debatably, the father of Nessarose. The magic to bridge the gateway between worlds had been a special gift, brought on by the power of their unique union.

Or so she had thought.

With a deep sigh, the Witch turned away from the strange glass, shuddering beneath her thick black shawls. An annoying voice tugged at the back of her mind, telling her that all the answers would probably be revealed to her if she looked through the glass again. But she was not certain she wanted to know.

"First things first," she told Chistery (since he was the only one with her in the old tower), "I have to get Dorian and Klaus back to that…Earth."

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the Wizard leering at her, and Nor's broken body. She heard his voice callously detailing the murders of Sarima and her sisters and poor Irji. She knew that the Wizard had sent assassins for her. It was clear that he could wait for the Grimmerie and the Mirror no longer. But it was not a battle the Earth people should be made to endure, she told herself, slightly regretting what would be the loss of Klaus' ability to make sense of the writing in the Grimmerie. This was _her _fight, and she'd long ago realized she probably would not be the one to win it.

_I'm limited, _she thought bitterly. _My time is limited before the Wizard's forces come in earnest and the Winkies aren't able to hold them back. I have to get the others away from here before then, maybe they can take Nanny and Liir with them. _

"Then it will be just you and me, Chistery, and the traitor, let her stay and see what her meddling has done. If she hadn't delivered the shoes right to him—!" Elphaba sighed, leaning back against the mirror inadvertently.

She jerked away from the mirror as though it were water, realizing even as she did that the glass had not melted, had not begun to give away. Confused, she reached towards the shimmering surface and pressed against it. Her hand felt only a solid glass.

The gateway was closed.

"Something's happening," Elphaba told Chistery, absently scratching the monkey's head. He squawked loudly and rustled his leathery wings, unfazed by her growing worry. "Something made the mirror in the Other world react, drawing all of us—except Klaus—forcibly here. Then, Klaus was able to come through, but now, they can't go back…" she was pacing now, and lifted a hand against the formerly magic mirror again in irritation. "Useless thing! I should never have gone through it in the first place! Never…"

She'd been too weak. Too stung by Fiyero's disappearance, and too hurt by Sarima's refusal to listen to her apology. She had thought of Glinda then, every day, despite what the other seemed to think. She had even considering writing to her old roommate. But she had not been able to decide, ultimately, if it was fair to disrupt the life of someone she had not seen in years. And she had always had the fear, deep down, that the blonde would revert to her old snobbish ways. Nanny had not come out to the Vinkus yet, and her experiments and research into the mirror and the Grimmerie were only frustrating her. So perhaps the loneliness and frustration were to blame…

Gently, the Witch raised her green hand and stroked the smooth glass surface one more time. She had not thought of Heinz in a long time. Partly do to her tireless efforts to find out what had happened to Sarima and her vanishing family. It had been a year spent spying and hunting fruitlessly. The other part of the reason was that she hadn't loved him, in the same way she hadn't really loved Fiyero. She had used him, in the same way she had used Fiyero, to assuage some of her own loneliness, some of her emptiness, and her grief.

She had been in the chapel, thinking of Glinda, when Fiyero had found her, and forced himself stubbornly into her life. She smiled bitterly at the thought of him demanding entrance to her humble apartment, and demanding for her to tell him what was happening in her life. And he had cared—he really had, or he had tried too—and she had cared for him, too, because he was her one remaining link to the world outside of the resistance, the world of her so-called friends from her days at Shiz. He was a glimpse at the life she had left behind when she had deserted Glinda in the Emerald City.

And then the Wizard's soldiers had come for him, and it had been entirely her fault. With Sarima dead, she had no one left she could apologize to. "_I am married, but not to a man," _she had told him. He had seen her in Saint Glinda's chapel that evening. And he never said a word.

With a groan, the Witch sank to her knees. Chistery, whom she had forgotten about, rubbed against her side, whimpering at the sight of his master so distressed. She raised a hand absently to comfort him.

"This has all gotten too complicated, Chistery. Glinda, her son…Heinz' son…none of them should be here. But I can't send them back. I can't do anything. I should have joined Nessarose when I had the chance, raised an army against the Wizard. Now what can I do? Sit here and wait for the soldiers at Red Windmill to come and kill me? Watch the last few people who mean anything to me die like everyone else already has?"

Chistery did not understand her distress. The monkey rubbed his head affectionately against her shoulder making mangled, clumsy words.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Dorian groaned and tried to move his head—futilely, tried, since it seemed to weigh ten thousand pounds—and groaned again. Why did it feel like he was severely hung over?

"Stop trying to move, you idiot," a familiar voice reprimanded him sharply.

He cracked one eye open and saw the blurry face of the Major swimming over him. The whole room seemed to be swaying. "Oooh my head!"

"Stop whining! You're lucky to alive!" the Major snapped.

"Why? What happened?" he groaned, taking a cup of water the Major thrust at him and wishing the light coming through the window wasn't _quite _so painfully bright.

"You were poisoned. Do to your own carelessness, of course. Why did you just let that thug cut you?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," he replied sarcastically, wincing even as he spoke. "Seriously, darling, I have _no _idea what you're shouting about. I don't remember anything…um….I ruined your wedding…went to another world…there were those strange foreign soldiers…OH CRAP! The soldiers did we get away from them?"

"Obviously," the Major said dryly.

"Ha. Y—es, quite," Dorian continued. "So that's when I was….what? Poisoned?"

"Poisoned," the Major replied.

"Ah. I see. I see…. So, why are _you _the one watching over me? Not to sound ungrateful, Major, but concern _is_ slightly uncharacteristic of you."

The Major snorted, sitting in the chair beside the bed with his arms folded crossly over his chest. "Idiot. I can't exactly dump you at the hospital and be on my way now, can I?"

"Oh. We're still in the mirror world, then, I take it?" he said after a moment.

"Yes," said the Major, clearly irritated. "And I have no idea when we'll get out. The Witch seems to think we're stuck here."

"The Witch—you're mother the Witch, or my mother the Witch?"

"Fool…" he opened his eyes a sliver, even though the light still hurt his head, and watched the conflicting emotions crossing the German's face with interest. He had almost expected the Major to explode and start ranting that the green-skinned woman was in no way his mother, but instead there were alarmingly pained expressions flickering over the pale visage.

"Major…"

"You should eat something," he said brusquely, standing. "I'll find the old hag."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Is your Ama with Dorian now?" Glinda asked the Witch, her blue eyes darting worriedly towards the stairs. "Feeding him that awful stew of hers?"

"It's not awful, it's efficient," the Witch replied, not looking up at her from the heavy tombs she was studying. "You just don't like it because it's ugly. That's your problem, Glinda, you've always been a snob."

The Major stood a few feet away from them, in the castle's spacious drawing room. He'd caught himself pacing, and was irritated at the universe in general. He would have also murdered for a cigarette. The women's banter didn't really interest him, but a moment later, the blonde Witch departed for the stairs, clearly concerned about the affect "Nanny's miracle stew" would have on her son. It seemed strange to think of the petite blonde, who looked not so much older than Eroica, as the Earl's mother. Of course, considerably less strange than thinking of the green-skinned woman, now the soul occupant of the room besides himself, as his…

The Major swallowed. He had tried not to think about it, but his father's words kept playing in his mind, over and over again, on and endless loop. And he saw the old man's sad, tired eyes, that were nevertheless the eyes of the strong tank commander father that he remembered from his childhood. "_Then one night, she came out of the mirror…Elphaba…she was so different…like a mourner…I have been lying to you…for thirty-three years now…Henrietta was not your mother…"_

He sighed deeply, crossed the room, and sat in the ancient, dust-covered chair across from her. No one appeared to have cleaned Kiamo Ko in years. Probably not since the castle's original inhabitants had died. Elphaba Thropp did not look up at him, but merely turned another page in her book.

"I tried to go through the Mirror earlier," she said all of a sudden, without so much as a glance up from the ancient text. "It wouldn't work. I think it's safe to say you and goldilocks are stuck here."

A door slammed loudly somewhere before he could respond, and Liir entered the drawing room, rain running down his face and drenching his clothes. He was breathing heavily, obviously excited about something.

"You've been down to Red Windmill, haven't you?" Elphaba asked, only glancing up at him.

"The town with the soldiers?" Klaus asked. "Isn't that dangerous?"

The Witch shrugged. "They don't mind."

He frowned, restraining from shouting. Was everyone in this world an idiot as well as insane? "I mean for the boy! It's a stupid risk! They could kidnap him and hold him to use against you." _And if anyone in this world had any brains they probably would have._

"I told him that," the Witch replied, glaring at him, and finally closed the book. "But you try dealing with a fourteen year old boy. I should have pickled him before he got this old."

"Auntie!" Liir cried, tired of being ignored.

"Don't call me that, you know it makes me sick," she frowned. "What is it? What new nonsense has got you excited now?"

"It's more news about the—the girl Dorothy and her friends!" he said excitedly. "The soldiers have been getting reports on her progress as she makes her way here."

"Oh how wonderful," the Witch replied sarcastically. Then more seriously she added, "They're still weeks away, Liir. No cause for excitement yet."

"Only a fortnight, according to the report Commander Cherrystone received," Liir said excitedly. "I can't believe they actually got to meet the Wizard! They must be incredible. And that girl, do you think she's really from another world?"

Elphaba put a hand to her forehead tiredly. "Liir. We've been over this before—"

"I just thought you'd like to know they were making progress, that's all," the boy replied, though he clearly felt hurt.

The Witch stared at him for a moment, and sighed wearily. "Yes. You're right. Thank you for that news, Liir."

"I mean, since they are coming to—to—you know," the boy stammered, suddenly staring at the floor.

She sighed. "I know. You told me before. And what have I told you about that stuttering?"

"Sorry," he grumbled.

"My, an actual apology," she said, clearly surprised, one black eyebrow arching on her green face. "What a surprise."

Klaus watched the awkward exchange in silent confusion. He could not be sure of the boy's exact relationship with Elphaba. He called her 'auntie.' Yet what was that she had said when he and Glinda had first stepped inside Kiamo Ko's walls and she had learned he was a military officer?

"_Out of two sons…" _

Did that mean the boy was not her nephew, but in fact her son, and his half-brother? The Major's frown deepened at the thought.

"Major," Elphaba said. It was strange for her to call him that, he had even prepared himself to _not _snap at her for using his first name, if what his father had told him was true… But she didn't. And, oblivious to his confused thoughts, continued. "I suppose I should tell you this. You and Glinda's son are not the only visitors in our world. A few weeks ago another stranger—a young farm girl—quite literally dropped in after her house was carried into Oz by a tornado. Her name is Dorothy and she's been traveling around Munchkinland with her dog and three strange characters—a woodman who lost all of his limbs and had them replaced with tin, a Lion, and some sort of scarecrow."

The Major frowned. "I see. And they are coming here."

She nodded, but her face was grim. "Liir can tell you the details. I'm going to go back to my tower and see if I can't find out anything more about our Mirror-related difficulties."

She stood slowly, straightening the heavy black scarves that she wore even within the fortress' walls, and looked slowly from Liir to Klaus before picking up her books. She slipped out of the room as silently as the shadows. The Major felt a regret he could not name, and turned to Liir so that he would not have to think about it.

The boy seemed nervous, but grateful for the attention, and took a deep breath. "Dorothy and her friends went to the Emerald City to see the Wizard," he said excitedly.

"And this Wizard is so important here?" the Major asked.

Liir's eyes grew wide and exited as he spoke. "Oh yes—YES! He's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. How can you NOT have heard of him? Why, he's the one who ordered the construction of the Emerald City _and _the Yellow Brick Road that connects all of Oz. He over through the Ozma—"

_So he's their ruler, _the Major reasoned, wishing he had a cigarette, but nodded for the boy to go on.

"Well no one gets to just _see _the Wizard. Especially not strange nobody's like the girl and her friends," Liir told him. "But they got in to see him! And they asked for the strangest things you'd ever heard of. The Tin Woodman asked for a heart, the Lion for courage, and the Scarecrow asked for brains."

The Major rubbed his forehead. It felt as though his life was getting stupider by the minute.

"Auntie made a joke that Dorothy should have asked for a shoe-horn," he continued soberly, "But she really asked to go home, 'cause she's a stranger here, like the Witch said."

If Liir _was _Elphaba's son they _certainly _didn't seem to be close.

"Anyways, the Wizard refused to grant their requests. Auntie Witch wasn't surprised. But he said that he WOULD grant them, on one condition, and that's why they're coming out here to the Vinkus."

"Why? What was the condition?" the Major asked. But to his surprise, the boy didn't seem to want to say. His eyes darted to the floor and he shifted from foot to foot uneasily, mumbling.

The Major rose from his chair, frowning. "What is it? What did the Wizard send this 'Dorothy' and her freakish friends here to do?"

By now Liir actually looked as though he might burst into tears at any second. The Major was torn between a certain degree of pity and annoyance. "I can't help you if you don't tell me what the problem is," he tried, fighting to keep his voice calm.

Liir looked up at him in surprise. "Y—You mean you're actually going to stay and help us?" he asked.

The Major sighed. "It's not like I have a choice. It doesn't look as though I'll be going back to Germany any time soon."

A brief look of confusion crossed the boy's face, but he shook it off, clearly growing more confident. "Well, the Wizard said he would grant Dorothy and her friends all their bizarre requests if they came out here to Kiamo Ko and…" here he paused _again_ and Klaus fought to keep his temper under control. When the boy finally finished his sentence, it was in a much smaller voice. "…to come out here and kill her."

"Her? Her who?"

"…Auntie Witch."

"Elphaba?" he blinked, and took a step back. "You're saying the Wizard sent a little girl, a mutilated woodman, an animal, and a _scarecrow_ to assassinate the Witch? How is this 'Dorothy' even going to get through the soldiers stationed everywhere?"

"Oh, they won't hurt her," Liir said, shaking his head. "Dorothy's under protection ordered by the most powerful officers in the military. It's because of her name, you see, even more than the Wizard's orders. Dorothy is called Dorothy _Gale _and the Wizard's soldiers are called the _Gale _Force. They already believe she's a bit holy. And they're far too…what's the word Auntie uses? _Superstitious _to attack her. A few of them joked about it and…well…their bodies are on display around Red Windmill now."

"I…see," the Major stared in surprise. This insane world was by turns stupid and extremely dangerous. It was difficult to say if the girl and her friends were actually a threat to the Witch or not. Liir seemed upset over it, but he was just a child. Klaus would have thought the growing army of soldiers stationed in the town below them would have been a far greater cause for concern, but evidently the boy went there and cavorted with them without fear. Though they had tried to kill Eroica.

He really wanted a cigarette.

"Mostly," Liir continued, "I want to meet Dorothy. She's all they talk about in town nowadays. I mean, I've never really met anyone_. She_ doesn't let me go anywhere, you know. Dorothy sounds really wonderful. Auntie saw her on one of her trips, or she _says _she did. She didn't let me come along. She never lets me go anywhere."

"No…" said Klaus, who was slightly annoyed by this, but also thankful that it didn't seem as though he would have to worry about any perverted behavior from Liir"But you should stay away from Red Windmill for a while, just in case."

"Auntie said that too," the boy said with a sigh. "But okay, I guess."

"Why do you call her that?" the Major asked after a minute. "Is she your aunt?"

"No…It's just what Manek, Irji, and Nor called her," the boy replied. "Sarima's children."

_The people who lived here before, the ones whom the soldiers killed, _Klaus vaguely remembered the Witch mentioning them.

"Anyways, I don't know what else to call her. She says she doesn't like it when I call her 'Auntie' but I don't know what else to call her. Manek and Irji said she was my mother," he continued, quieter, staring at the ground again. "But I don't know. She never told me."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Mirror had stubbornly cut off the gateway and refused to open. Instead, images and shapes swirled in its foggy surface. She saw the girl, Dorothy, in her blue and white checkered dress, her annoying little dog clasped in her arms. The Witch could not look at the girl's open, innocent face. It was too painfully familiar. An image of someone she had been, long ago. So she turned her gaze to the three odd companions.

The Lion, she recognized, from her days at Shiz. Could it be the tiny cub, shivering and scared, separated from his family by the uncaring professors that she had tried to defend? The tin woodman was also familiar. She vaguely recalled her sister, Nessarose, in her role as tyrannical dictator-ess, leaning over the old woman's axe, giving it an enchantment to slice off the arms and legs of an annoying suitor or some-such.

But the Scarecrow…he was the truly different one.

"Elphaba? Elphie?" the voice called to her, jarring her from her trance and shattering the vision into a blur of mist, and then nothing at all. "Elphie? It's me, Glin—"

"I know it's you, Glinda," she said, _I would recognize that annoying voice of yours anywhere! _"What do you want?"

The blonde sorceress was staring at her with wide eyes. She smoothed the folds of her gown, now pink (had she magicked it up somehow?) and lowered her gaze. "Elphie, I just…I wanted to see you. I know something's wrong, but Liir won't talk to me, and you keep cloistering yourself away up in this tower."

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Elphie…" the blonde's head dipped, and she wrung her hands delicately. "You said, before, that people were coming to kill you."

She stood, pushed away from the now-useless looking-glass and regarded Glinda with a blank expression. "I have nothing more to say to you Glinda," she said, brushing passed her, and heading towards the darkened doorway. She heard the blonde's choked gasp of breath, and out of the corner of her eye, saw Glinda raise hands gloved in pink satin, to wipe away tears. But she told herself she didn't care, and kept walking.

It was Nanny who met her in the hallway, wandering lost, and for a moment Elphaba felt a pang of worry that the old woman had forgotten where she was again. But no, Nanny regarded her with the sort of questioning, probing gaze, that made the Witch uncomfortable. "Galinda went in there to speak with you," she said.

"She calls her self Glinda now, Nanny, and I _know_ that,"

"Why won't you talk to her? Galinda or Glinda, she's still the same girl you went to school with,"

"That was nearly twenty years ago, and she's _not _the same girl," the Witch replied, knowing she would not be able to explain the gravity of everything to the doddering old woman.

"Come now, dear, you were _devoted _to Glinda at Shiz, _everyone _knew it," Nanny said kindly, placing one weak and weathered hand on Elphaba's bony shoulder.

The Witch nearly choked. The words tugged at a painful ache deep and dark within her, and reminded her of ghosts of days—of herself, Glinda, and Nessarose sitting, talking, laughing, young and so much more innocent then she was now. Days that could never be brought back. _People _and _ideas _that could never be returned to.

"Well, no more," she said in a coarse voice, stepping out of the old woman's reach. "No more, Nanny, she's a traitor. She's a traitor, so I'll have no more talk of this, do you understand me?"

But she could not face Nanny as she spoke, and the hands clenched into fists at her sides trembled of their own accord.

"You know…" Nanny continued, coming close to her again, not giving her a moment's reprieve. "We Amas would talk, dear. We always thought it would be you and Glinda who would stay together until the end."

"What? Nanny, what are you implying!" she shouted, then immediately quieted her voice, looking down the dark passageway to make sure no one else was about.

"Oh, for goodness sake, girl, I'm eight-five years old, I do know about such things! Your father, after all, poor old Frex, had a male lover. Granted, Turtle Heart was sleeping with your mother too, but…"

"I don't want to hear about this, I feel ill,"

"I'm just saying," the old woman sighed, "You and Glinda… Don't think we Amas didn't know about you two sneaking off to the Philosophy Club more than once after lights-out. And even we old biddies knew what went on _there_."

"You old thing, you don't even know what you're talking about!" Elphaba retorted.

"Like figs I don't!" the old woman huffed. "We knew you loved her. You took her with you to the Emerald City when you went to see the Wizard for the first time, on that quest of yours to save the Animals, didn't you? You didn't have to. You were nearly obsessed with her by then. And Glinda, the poor thing, was never the same after she came back alone. She locked herself in her room for weeks, wouldn't speak, wouldn't eat. I'm no fool, Elphaba Thropp, I can imagine what happened between you in that city."

"Alright," Elphaba sighed, pressing her forehead tiredly against the old lady's "But whatever I felt for Glinda back then, it's gone now. I told you: she betrayed me. She betrayed all of us, for the Wizard."

With that, she pulled away from the old woman. She had no desire to continue the discussion further. Liir would be moping about the dungeons with Chistery, and she would go and tell him to help Nanny back to her bedroom. She could not look at the old woman any longer.

The Witch slipped quickly through the shadows of the hallway, dipping down the stairs so fast she nearly flew, her heart pounding in her chest. When she reached the bottom, she leant against the stone wall and shut her eyes tightly for several minutes so that she would not weep.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

It was several long minutes before Glinda collected herself enough to leave the deserted room. She blinked the tears from her eyes and straightened the tiara perched in her curls. Her voluminous pink gowns, actually the blue gowns she had merely cast a quick bit of sorcery on them, rustled beneath her as she took shaky steps towards the door. Elphaba's words, spoken with such passion the green woman didn't seem to realize, could still hurt her deeply.

Still feeling hurt, the blonde witch wandered the castle's halls until she came to Dorian's room. The door was half-open, so she walked in. The room was quiet and empty, except of course for her son, who appeared to be asleep. Grey light filled the room in these uncomfortable hours of twilight. She leaned against the back of the door for a moment, and Dorian opened his eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

"Wha—what?" she asked. "I just came to see you."

He blinked, and looked around the small room, silent for a moment. "Where's the Major?"

"I wouldn't know. He wasn't here when I came in."

Dorian's gaze came back to her, colder. "Well, in any case I don't want you here."

"What? But why?"

"I haven't forgiven you," he said simply. "Besides, it's your fault all of this happened."

"You can hardly blame this on me!" she cried. "That's not fair!"

"Not fair?" he laughed bitterly, and tried to sit up a ways, but was evidently still too weak. He fell back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling, resolutely not looking at her. "You're a fine one to talk about 'not fair.'"

Glinda clasped her hands. She could not look at her son, either. "I…I'm sorry. I watched over you when you were sick, I—"

"And you think that makes up for abandoning me for sixteen years? _Sixteen years _and not once did you ever try to contact me… Don't think I forgot about those times you locked me alone in the tower!"

"I'm sorry," she said, "I've already tried to explain, but—"

She stopped as the door creaked opened behind her and she jumped out of the way. The Major regarded her with his usual inscrutable, hard, expression. "Well, what a surprise, Major Eberbach, I rather remembered that you weren't overly fond of my son."

His glare did not change. "Someone has to be responsible for ensuring our company doesn't die in this god-forsaken world, and since I'm the only one who isn't _mad_—"

"Alright, alright, I give up," she shook her head and stepped towards the door, turning to look at Dorian one last time before she left. He refused to meet her gaze. "I hope, one day, though, that you'll be able to forgive me…" But she felt too much like an intruder in something she did not understand, in that room. So she finally conceded defeat, and left.

Outside, the door shut firmly behind her. Glinda felt the cold dank draftiness of the old castle-fortress and fell back against the cold stone wall. Her head was aching as she rubbed the tears out of her eyes.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Dorian looked up as the Major crossed the small room. "I really just came to make sure…the old hag thought there was a chance you might slip into another coma, so I came to check."

"But you came yourself instead of sending someone else. Darling, I'm touched,"

The Major gave him a long-suffering look. "Are you trying to get me to yell at you?"

"Well, it would be nice to have a _little _normality…" to his surprise the smallest of smiles twitched at the corners of the Major's mouth, but the German turned away.

"It would be nice to have some cigarettes…"

"Oh? You're out?" Dorian asked, genuinely concerned. He didn't like the idea of a nicotine-deprived Major. Didn't like it at all. "Then…I shall be extra careful to be on my best behavior for the remainder of our stay here."

The Major turned back to him, a rather bemused expression on his face. "And what is Eroica's 'best behavior' exactly?"

_Oh my God. He's baiting me so that I'll say something perverted, so that he'll have an excuse to take out all of his cigarette-craving frustration and rage on _me

"Well?" the Major asked, now actually _leaning _over him!

Dorian's heart almost stopped—God, but that man was gorgeous when he was intimidating! He offered a not-entirely genuine smile and declined to respond. The Major sighed and turned away. "Well, you're alive. I'm leaving—"

"Wait, Major!"

_Fuck. Why did I say that? _Dorian thought as the Major actually _did _stop and turn his head towards him.

"What?" he asked over his shoulder. "What is it?" he was clearly irritated. As always.

"Uh…This is going to sound quite daft…" he managed to say after a moment.

The Major merely rolled his eyes. "Everything you says sounds bloody stupid, so just shut up and say it already!"

"Shut up and…Major, how am I supposed to do _that_?"

"You're fine. I'm leaving," he turned back to the door.

"No—uh, I, bollocks, Major I don't want to be…alone."

"Too bad," his hand grasped the door knob. Despite himself, the Earl felt a knot of panic tighten in his chest. But the Major paused and turned around again. "I'll put out the candle for you," he said, crossing the room in quick strides. The candle _was_ set on a small wooden table a few feet from Dorian's bed. He probably wouldn't have had the strength to get up and blow it out had he wanted to…but he most certainly did not want to—and he was willing to bet the arrogant German knew it, too!

"That's not necessary!" he shouted, wincing as his voice rose sharply higher then he had intended.

"What?" the Major asked, looking at him in genuine surprise for a minute. Then, slowly, a very evil smirk crossed the German's face. "Oh, I see…you're afraid the castle's gargoyles are going to come to life and accost you in your sleep, is that it?"

"That's simply terrible of you, and you know it!" he pouted, still watching the Major nervously. "It's a serious problem!"

"You have a _lot _of serious problems," the Major replied. "What sort of thief is afraid of the dark, anyways?" the Major demanded, swiping the brass candleholder off the desk in one swift movement so quickly Dorian was certain the flame would go out—and gripped the sheets. "I thought you got over that bit of stupidity after—"

"Something as traumatic as, oh, I don't know…NEARLY DYING could possibly re-instate it!" the Earl squeaked.

The Major wore a surprised (and not a little disturbed) expression on his face after hearing the outburst.

"Don't you dare blow out at that candle, Major!"

"If you close your eyes and go to sleep it'll be the same!"

"You sadist!"

"You idiot!"

"It's bad enough you left me tied up in a room full of haunted statues—"

"They weren't haunted, you're just a moron!"

"—but how can you torment me like this _now, _after I nearly _died_! You really are a despicable man!"

"_I'm_ despicable?" the Major asked. "If you just stayed out of my life—and out of my missions—"

"You can't say that! You're the one who sent me after that cursed statue in the first place!"

"Only an idiot or a child would have been scared by that stupid story!"

"Only a real bastard would keep tormenting someone who was!"

"Fine!" the Major growled, exasperated. "I won't blow out the stupid—"

The candle, possible annoyed by all the fighting, chose that moment to wink itself out of existence. The room was instantly plunged into black darkness and Dorian was ashamed at himself for the terrible cry of surprise and genuine horror that erupted from his throat. He hunched over, shivering.

_Damn that Major! And…me…I really thought that I was finally over this. How am I supposed to be Eroica when I can't even handle the dark? _

"…I didn't put it out," the Major's voice said after a minute, startling him so much that he shuddered.

"Yeah _right_, I know you're enjoying this!" he said, finally summoning the courage to look up. The darkness of the room was deep and terrifying. Faint moonlight came in through the tiny window, but it wasn't enough—not nearly enough! If anything, it made everything eerier, creating murky shadows that moved wraithlike across the walls and floor. He almost thought he would be sick.

"Damn, you weren't lying…" the Major continued. "What an idiot, but still…"

Unable to look at the ghost-like world of darkness anymore, Dorian had buried his face in his arms and so didn't know what sort of expression the Major had, not that he really cared at the moment. He heard footsteps crossing the stone floor and had to fight back against his racing heart. _It's just the Major. _

The door creaked just a bit. "If it bothers you that much I can light it again, but I left my lighter in my room, since I didn't have any cigarettes anyways."

"No!" he shouted, then tried to will himself to be calm. It wasn't happening. "No. Don't. Don't leave—" God, that sounded pitiful. "Don't you _dare _leave me here, you bastard! Not after what you did." There, that was a bit better.

The Major paused, anyways. For a moment, the Earl almost relaxed. Then the sound of a wooden chair screeching as it was dragged across the stone floor shocked him so badly he nearly leapt right out of the bed. Something heavy was pressing against his shoulder. He panicked, clawing at it madly—

"It's just me. Shit," the Major's voice, rough as usual, but the tone was also different, in a way Dorian didn't find immediately familiar. He was sitting in the chair now, so it seemed he really _wasn't _going to leave. And the Major's arm had reached out to steady him, and was still pressed against his shoulder, but the poor thief was in no state to enjoy it. Instead he cringed back against the mattress and drew the covers up over his head in shame. "You're drenched in sweat!" the Major's voice continued, sounding predictably angry and accusatory. "What brought this on?" The Earl cowered and was silently grateful the German hadn't stormed off, leaving him alone in this horrible darkness!

"I don't want to talk about it," he said, not liking how choked his voice sounded, but still shivering anyways. He figured he might as well just give up on salvaging his pride. _Besides, if I never get over this fear it's not like Eroica has much of a future…_

"Well I do! This is serious. We need to be at our sharpest in this foreign place and you're hardly any use when you're scared of your own shadow!"

"I don't know, alright?" he sighed, pressing his palms against his eyes. "Are people in comas supposed to dream, Major?"

"How the hell should I know a stupid thing like that?"

"Well _I _did. Horrible—horrible visions. One after another, without end, and every time I thought I'd escaped them and woken up, it was only to fall into another even darker and more violent then the last…"

"I can't believe a couple of bad dreams caused this," the Major snorted, and Dorian didn't say anymore, until several long minutes passed and the officer fidgeted and spoke again. "Are you asleep? Because if you're asleep, I'm going…"

"I'm not asleep! Don't leave!" he shouted, reaching out a hand to reassure himself that the Major was still really there, that the disembodied voice floating through the perfect darkness was not just a figment of his imagination. His hand clenched the sleeve of the Major's uniform, and to his surprise the other man did not pull away.

He did sigh heavily. "I can't leave you here like this. You might bolt out into the hallway in blind panic and break your neck falling down the stairs."

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd really hate that," he said sarcastically ignoring the tears that stung in the corners of his eyes even as he said it, and thankful that in the dark the Major would not be able to see them. _So it is just your sense of duty keeping you here. Well that makes sense, of course...if only I was in proper state to take advantage of it!_

"Hey, Major…" he said quietly, feeling the inevitable exhaustion of all his panic clutching at him with long dark claws and being unable to resist it, yet terrified of it at the same time. "Sing to me…?"

"WHAT?"

"You have a really nice voice, remember…in the tank...when we first met? Anyways…I could probably fall asleep…and then you could go…"

"I don't know any lullabies," the Major said sarcastically. And not entirely truthfully, since the Earl seemed to remember him singing himself to sleep with 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' if his suspicions about what had happened aboard the Russian submarine way back during the Alaska fiasco were true.

But he was too exhausted to argue. He could feel the sharp fear of the encroaching nightmares gathering even beneath the crippling fatigue… "Please…just sing the German tank-song, then… You did before…"

He wasn't sure if his words were audible anymore. In any case, he felt himself slipping into the dark horrible place trapped between wakefulness and sleep. Silence stretched out in the endless black for several long minutes.

And then he heard the familiar, powerful voice singing deeply and in German. Slowly, the horrible fear of the darkness ebbed away and he began to relax.

By the end of the first verse, he was asleep.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Outside the small room, Glinda caught her breath and strained to listen through the shut doorway. Her heart beat loudly in her chest and she clutched her forearms haggardly as the memory from nearly twenty years ago was drudged up by the powerful tone that was, though different, still so sharply familiar.

The memory of lifetimes ago, when she had sat together with Nessarose and Elphaba, and Fiyero, Avaric, Nanny, and Boq. The friends had broken curfew, sitting together in the dark tavern, they'd had a bit too much wine, even Nanny, which was probably why she hadn't made any fuss. They had been eighteen then. Nessa had just gotten the shoes from her father. She had just changed her name to Glinda. It was on the cusp of everything, just before everything went all wrong. Sitting on the hard floor, with her back pressed against the cold stone wall, Glinda pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her arms, listening to the singing that brought back memories of Elphaba singing to them, back then.

Singing. Elphie. Who would have thought it? It seemed such a bizarre talent for someone so cold and dispassionate…no, not dispassionate, Elphaba had always been extremely passionate, just not about the things Glinda could understand. And that voice—so rich, so powerful, so…

Passionate. And it was the same in the Major's voice. Even though he was singing in German and she did not know the words. Any last lingering doubts she may have had about Klaus being Elphaba's son were obliterated. She wasn't sure why that made her as sad as it did.

**To be Continued in Chapter Ten: Deep Waters **


	10. Chapter 10: Deep Waters

**Chapter Ten**

**Deep Waters**

""_I didn't know you called yourself a Witch, I thought that was just a nasty backfield nickname. The Witch of the East."_

""_Well no. I'm her sister. I suppose I'm the Witch of the West, if you will." She grinned. "In fact I didn't know she was so disliked."_

--Gregory Maguire, _Wicked: The Life and Times_

The Major's dreams that night were far from pleasant. Not that he was a man who had ever put much stock in dreams, or was easily bothered by them. He normally forgot them as soon as he woke up. But this, like the dream he had the night they thought Eroica was dead, was permeated by an unsettling sensation of reality. Mostly because it was so empty—there was no dream-like foolishness, no setting, just white mist all around him.

Slowly, two other figures emerged from the mist. One was Elphaba, she was staring at the other intently, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. When she saw him her eyes grew wide. "What are you doing here?" she demanded more than asked, turning back to the other person, another woman, before he could reply. "Nessa?"

"Relax, Fabala, he's your son, isn't he?"

"Only Father could call me that," the Witch said, but she looked hurt.

The mists were clearing rapidly, and he could see the second woman, who appeared to be sitting on some sort of golden throne. She rose from the chair with unsettling grace, stepping towards them in an odd way, her steps slow, tentative. Her feet were clad in the most gaudy and extravagant things Klaus had ever seen, and he couldn't help it when his lip curled in disgust—although Eroica would probably have loved them—they were _red, _for one thing, and shone and glittered brilliantly. They distracted attention from the girl's torso, at least for a few seconds. She had an extravagant shawl fastened about her shoulders, but the nearer she came the more obvious her deformity appeared—for, although slender, pretty some might have even said, like the sort of women his lecherous Chief liked to chase after—she missing both her arms.

"He _is _your son, isn't he, Darling Elphie?" the woman asked. "Yes, I can see it now. He shares your…glare of displeasure."

"Just say what you want to say, Nessa!" the Witch snapped.

"Why so hostile?"

"…I apologize. But I am not accustomed to having my dreams invaded by—spirits."

"You aren't 'accustomed' to sleeping at all, as far as I can tell. You've been staving off sleep as best you can since you first took that Miracle Elixir, haven't you? I've been hovering about in limbo for weeks now, waiting for an opening," the armless woman replied.

"I'm sorry," Elphaba apologized again. "I didn't realize…are you…Is everything alright?"

"It's hardly alright, since I'm dead," Nessarose replied smartly.

The Witch evidently had no response for that; she shook her head.

"Well, aren't you going to give proper introductions? Surely you haven't forgotten _all_ your manners, living like a hermit in the Vinkus."

Elphaba was silent for a long moment, but she at last conceded. "Major, this is Nessarose, former Eminence of the East, and my younger sister. Nessie, this is Major Klaus…"

"Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach," he supplied.

She nodded to Nessarose, who looked bemused.

So what was this woman, then? His aunt? It couldn't be. Surely, not, the Major's frown deepend.

"I think I see a bit of Shell in him, too. Mother would have been pleased to see such a handsome-looking grandson. He isn't even the slightest bit green—you must have been ecstatic when he was born. I can't believe you didn't tell me. Or Father. You should have written. Or at the very least mentioned it when you visited us."

"Nessie…we don't have time for this. What do you have to tell me—us—that's so important?" Elphaba asked. "And how are you even doing this? You're dead."

"Oh that, yes, well," the younger Thropp sister said, tossing her head ever so slightly. "You remember that dear Glinda wasn't the only one who ended up studying sorcery, don't you? I told you before, that a righteous person can work miracles in the honor of the Unnamed God," she said. "It's that Mirror of yours that's helping, and the Unnamed God gives me strength, as always."

"The Mirror?" asked Elphaba, confused.

"Well, somewhat, it does have those world-bridging powers. The glass, you know, made by Turtle Heart, like the glass of these slippers, which were made in the same fashion by Papa…Alas, I don't have them anymore."

"You don't need them anymore," the Witch said, but the Major heard the catch in her voice.

"Well, don't be sore about it, I changed my will and left them to you, just as I said I would. Why, haven't you got them?"

"We don't have time to go into that, Nessa. Tell me, what is it? What could be so terrible that you've resisted death itself to tell me about it?"

"In a minute, Elphie, this will be my only time to ever see my nephew…You might be a little more understanding." Her scrutinizing gaze made Klaus distinctly uncomfortable, it was like being twelve years old and surrounded by the prying eyes of his extensive family again. "He's been baptized, I hope?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Tsk, tsk. I still wish you'd let me give you a proper baptismal that time you came up to Colwen Grounds—"

"Water," the Witch said, "is extremely painful to me. And I've told you before, I can't pledge allegiance to anything unnamed. Don't bring this up again."

"I won't," Nessarose said quietly. "I can't."

Elphaba appeared to have regretted her choice of words immensely. She hung her head. "I'm sorry, Nessa…" she looked up, crossed the few feet that separated her from her sister, and hugged her, kissed her, too. It was the first sign of any affection Klaus had seen the woman show, and he was momentarily taken aback.

"Is there anything I can do, Nessie? Anything to help…speed your journey? Nanny fancied you went straight to the bosom of Lurline."

The former Eminent Thropp sniffed. "Nanny always was pagan at heart," she said. "The Unnamed God will gather me to his side once it is time. Speaking of time, you're going to wake up soon, and I have things to say."

Elphaba and Klaus both nodded, and she continued. "First," she said, "If you don't have the shoes, get the shoes. They're important," and in the dream, they shone on her feet like ruby fire. "The Mirrors, also, are very important, both yours and Glinda's. You must go and see her in her Ruby Castle at once, and get it from her. Together with the shoes, the Mirrors will gain even more power. I did quite a lot of research into this before I became the Eminent Thropp, you know. I needed something to do, as you had quite effectively abandoned me," she paused for a moment, watching the Witch as though expecting another apology, and when she got none, continued in a slightly offended tone, "as I was saying, the Mirrors and the shoes, Elphie, they're keys, although I'm not sure how to use them, exactly. You were always the clever one, I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out in time."

"In time for what?" the Major asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Well, it seems as though when our Glorious Wizard overthrew the Ozma Regent it upset some kind of worldly balance. He wasn't from our world, Elphie, it's amazing what you can find out if you dig around enough. Anyways, he wasn't meant to be in our world. Shouldn't be in our world now. It's throwing the whole thing off. And it's getting worse. I began to sense the upset more and more acutely as the years went by. I thought you would know more about it, with all of your ridiculously arcane and esoteric…hobbies. That was why I wanted you to stay with me and rule by my side, but you refused."

"Don't say your death is my fault, Nessie," the Witch said, but she choked, and the expression on her face seemed to say that this was something she had thought of a great deal. "Anyways, Father said I should stay to help you organize your armies and plan—"

"That was _Father's _reason, not mine," she replied a bit haughtily. "Anyways, he probably didn't mention this to you because he remembered how you had scoffed at him for his belief in other worlds when you were a child. You were surprisingly cruel as a child, Elphie."

Elphaba looked stung, "he knew about this too?" she asked quietly.

Nessarose nodded and continued, "the Wizard was the first…crack to appear between our worlds. Then more and more cracks started appearing…"

"When Glinda and I used the Mirrors?" Elphaba asked. "To cross to the Other world?"

"You _what_?" Nessa asked, her eyes growing wide. "I—maybe. Anyways, these…cracks, so to speak, they've opened a sort of chasm between the two worlds. Big enough for things from their world to just _fall _through. Like a house."

"Oh, Nessa…"

"But I have something I've been meaning to ask you, too, sister," Nessarose said, "what did you see when you drank the Miracle Elixir? It's tied into all this too, somehow, as are you. You know Mother drank it when she…conceived you. And I'm not entirely certain it is of this world, either."

But the Witch looked away and would not answer her question.

"It's important!" Nessa pressed, leaning forwards with the unnatural balance that made the hairs on the back of the Major's neck stand on end. She was somehow like a snake standing on the tip of it's tail. "What scared you so badly you've been refusing to sleep these past weeks? What did you see?"

The dream began to fade, the mists were slipping away, their bodies wavered and felt stretched thin. The Major saw Nessarose crane her neck back, looking around them in distress. "Elphie, please, I haven't got any more time! Tell me! When you drank the Miracle Elixir, what did you see?"

Elphaba's face was drawn tight, her mouth curled into a grimace. She still would not look at either of them, and the shadow of the brim of her black hat hid her eyes. "Water," she said quietly, in a low voice. "Deep…water."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0

Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach regarded the worn wooden broom with a look of unmitigated revulsion. He didn't like it. He didn't like that the Witch seemed to think it could fly, and that given the winged monkeys and dimension-crossing Mirrors and ghost-infested dreams it probably _could_. It defied his previous conceptions of the universe and it did so in a totally undignified, childish, and stupid way. Witches and flying broomsticks. What was this, a children's fantasy story? His brow creased in frustration and disgust.

Also, he would have murdered for a cigarette.

Elphaba sat across from him at the small wooden table in the kitchen of Kiamo Ko. Neither of them had felt like sitting in the dining room, where Liir, Nanny, Glinda, or Eroica would have wanted to join them. They each seemed to feel the unsettling importance of Nessa's dream. Yet neither of them was going to start the conversation. Elphaba stared at nothing in particular, a long uneven crack in the old stone wall, and the Major glowered at the broom, since it seemed to represent just about everything he loathed about this world.

"It could be used for firewood," he said at last.

She glanced at the broom and then resumed staring at the wall. "I've thought of that, but it was a gift from Sister Bursar."

"A nun?" he asked, surprised despite himself.

"We call them maunts here," the Witch said. "they live in convents and help the poor."

"Nuns," he repeated, nodding. Well, at least keeping the old broom, no matter how distasteful it was, made some sense, then. You couldn't just throw away something given to you by nuns.

"There was a brief period when I could not take care of myself, and I went to live with them," she told him. He was surprised, as she hadn't said anything else even remotely relating to her past to him before, but he nodded.

"Nuns are good," he said, after a minute.

She nodded. "It was beside the Church of Saint Glinda," she said.

Saint Glinda? He thought, and remembered the saint or angel in the stained glass window he had seen once back on Earth, that had reminded him so unsettlingly of Eroica.

Neither of them said anything else for a very long time.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0

"I didn't love Fiyero," she told herself again, alone in her tower, Chistrey loyally at her side. She'd been telling herself that for several days now, and she had to keep telling herself. But it must have been true, she'd let them take him, after all. The Gale Force. All for her rebel cause. And what had that come to? Nothing. She shook her head in disgust, staring out over the dark rolling plains of the Vinkus.

"I'm the Witch, Chistrey. I'm evil now, I'm wicked, so I can hardly love anybody, isn't that right?" she stood and crossed the room to where the useless Mirror was.

Nessarose had told her that she needed both Mirrors and the shoes. She'd been trying to get the damn shoes for weeks, and she was hardly able to just get on her broom and fly to Glinda's castle in—where was it? Frottica? The Pertha Hills? Somewhere North… No, she shook her head, clearing her thoughts, she couldn't leave to fetch Glinda's Mirror with her assassins on the way, and Kiamo Ko full of people who depended on her…not to return and find them all taken from her…not again.

She turned back to the Mirror, the longer she stared at it, the clearer the vision became, again, of the girl Dorothy and her three unusual protectors. The Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow. She watched the Scarecrow then, giving him, the one she could not place, the one she did not know, her undivided attention. It couldn't _really _be an animated pile of rags and hay, could it? No, it must be a disguise. Some sort of disguise. But who would wear a disguise to travel with the girl everyone in Oz seemed so damn taken with? To come to her…to come to the Vinkus…

_I didn't love Fiyero…_she thought.

Her hand raised the glass and the vision vanished.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0

"It won't be much longer before these…assassins reach us," the Major said. He stood in the spacious drawing room of Kiamo Ko, which no one had used in years before Glinda and Dorian had become quite taken with the artistic tapestries and colourful divans it contained. "I know they don't sound like much of a threat," he said, he had already related to the Glorias everything Liir had told him. The group of them, even old Nanny, were seated on the comfortable chairs around him, listening, "but we shouldn't make the mistake of underestimating them. I don't have any bullets left in my Magnum—"

"Major!" Eroica exclaimed. "Surely you weren't thinking of _shooting _a little girl!"

He glared at the Earl in annoyance. "Don't be a fool, Eroica. She has three…men, so to speak, with her, who may be violent. They were sent to kill the Witch, and maybe her allies…which would be us. We should be prepared for—"

"No," Elphaba's voice said suddenly from the doorway. She entered the drawing room with a sort of glazed half-aware look in her eyes, and hazily regarded them all, shaking her head. "No, don't you see? Don't you realize? He's coming back—he's coming back to me! He didn't know how to sneak back into the Vinkus, he's their king, after all, this is his castle—"

"What?" the Major asked, "the owner of this castle—"

"It's Fiyero!" she breathed, and Glinda jumped to her feet, covering her mouth with her hands. "He's coming back to me. He's in disguise, as a Scarecrow, but it's him—"

"No!" Glinda shouted. "Elphie that's impossible, Fiyero's dead!"

The Witch's eyes turned cold and hard again, she glared at her. "No, he's coming back to me, you'll see. There will be no fighting them!" she said, turning to them all. "They'll be my guests here!"

"No," the Major said, stepping up next to Glinda, "Lady Gloria—for once—is right. That's madness!"

"Silence! I won't hear anymore of this!" she yelled, turning to them with a look that was half-madness in itself, a wild sort of fantastical desperation that caused even Klaus to take a step backwards as she passed them in a flurry of black skirts. "I'll send Killyjoy down into the valley to greet them, and he'll bring them back here—"

"Elphie, no, you're not thinking straight!" Glinda cried.

But the Witch would hear no more of their protests, and calling loudly for Killyjoy, she stalked out of the room, as strangely and as abruptly as she had come in. Glinda and the Major exchanged equally alarmed looks. "This isn't good," Glinda whispered, tugging at one of her curls nervously.

"Who was Fiyero?" Eroica asked.

"Oh, oh, Fiyero—" Glinda laughed a little nervously, turning to where Dorian was reclining on one of the divans. "Fiyero was a prince from—from here. I guess this was his castle. He went to school with us, at Shiz, and was a friend of ours…I didn't see him after we graduated, except for once when I was shopping for Lurlinemas with Crope…but, never mind about that…"

"Yes, but what does he have to do with Elphaba?" Eroica asked, and the Major nodded.

"You're not telling us everything,"

"Oh," she laughed again, nervously, "I suppose I'm not. There is something else. I only just—just learned it myself, you see. It seems Elphaba had an affair with Fiyero when she was living underground in the Emerald City, years ago. I—I think he must have been Liir's father."

"What?" said Liir, whom they had all forgotten was still in the room. "That's what the goldfish in the well told me, but—"

"Yes, yes, that's very nice, dear," Glinda said in a nervous, flighty manner, shooing him away.

The Major frowned. "So he was her lover—"

Glinda nodded, "But the Wizard's soldiers got rid of him, you know, for being involved with Elphie. She was a member of the resistance movement, back then, I think."

"So she's blamed herself for it, and now she's made it up that he's coming back to her, to give her absolution?" Eroica said. They both turned and looked at him. The Major frowned. Glinda shrugged. Nanny asked where the tea was.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0

Over the next week, nothing would persuade Elphaba from her increasingly frantic belief that the mysterious Scarecrow that traveled with Dorothy and her friends was none other than her late lover, Fiyero, in disguise. She would hear no talk of planning to attack them, and seemed to have forgotten entirely about the fact that Dorothy and company were coming to the Vinkus with the intention of murdering her. She appeared to have forgotten entirely the dream with Nessarose as well, and her dead sister's dire warnings about the fabric of space and time. The Major found himself annoyed at her sudden lack of reason and her distraction. She was developing nervous habits, her elbows twitched when she walked, and she had given up sleeping all together.

They remained cautiously silent in her presence, as she spoke more and more of her belief that Fiyero was returning to her, and when she retreated to her tower, they discussed defensive strategies and the Major instructed Liir to show their group all of the passageways, corridors and alcoves of the castle-fortress. They found nothing of much use in the armory, which had presumably already been raided by the Wizard's soldiers when they had taken the castle's original inhabitants. The Major sighed. They had no weapons, not one of them made a competent soldier, and there were certainly no tanks. Not to mention the lack of cigarettes. He drummed his fingers against the worn tabletop irritably.

"Major?" Eroica came up behind him.

"What do you want?"

"She's sent the dogs out again, you know. To greet them,"

"She's been doing that everyday," Klaus growled.

"I know but, today, well—" the Earl frowned. "Today they haven't come back and—"

A scream rang through the halls and corridors of Kiamo Ko. It was not a shriek of terror, but a blood-curdling cry of rage, anger and fury so intense that Eroica jumped, and the Major looked above them in alarm, but of course only the cold stone ceiling met his gaze. The Witch screamed again, and something crashed loudly, smashing against the floor above them.

"What's going on?" the Earl asked.

The Major was already half-way to the door. They met Glinda and Liir in the hallway, both looked pale and shaken. "What is it?" the Major demanded. "What's going on?"

"It's Dorothy and her friends," Glinda said in a whisper. "They're at the town of Red Windmill. Elphie's been watching through a spyglass from the tower—they've killed Killyjoy—"

He pushed roughly passed Glinda and headed for the tower's spiral staircase, the others following close behind him. At the top, in her cluttered work room, the Witch was screaming. She threw the spyglass to Liir, shouting. "Look! Look what they've done! They've killed your dog!"

Klaus snatched the spyglass out of Liir's hands and raised it to his eye. It a took a moment for him to find them, scanning the horizon, but then he found the town of Red Windmill, and saw the strange group—and the shocking mass of carnage that surrounded them. A young girl was cowering beside a trembling lion and a scarecrow while a tall man who seemed to be made entirely of tin limbs towered over them, swinging a giant axe that sliced brutally through the Witch's wolves. Killyjoy and the other dogs lay strewn in a bloody pile around them.

He lowered the spyglass and looked to his mother. The Witch was spinning around, as though unsure what to do. In a mad fury she raced to her table and grabbed the Grimmerie, flipping wildly through the pages.

Suddenly, she shoved the book in front of him, pointing to the page. "Read it! Now!" she demanded.

He glared at her for a moment, but took the book and read out the words, they made no sense to him, short clipped parts of words, he thought, not English, but not any other language he could place. The Witch however, nodded, she turned and looked up at the hordes of black crows that rested in the rafters and in the window slots of the her tower. There were more than Klaus remembered noticing before, rustling their wings and looking at their mistress with black, empty eyes.

"I've been playing the part of the Witch," she said, "I might as well actually perform a spell, if I can." She pointed a finger at them shakily, her breath trembling, and repeated the sounds he had read for her. She repeated them again, her voice rising, and the crows squawked and fluttered. Beside him, Eroica shifted a little closer, but he ignored it for the moment, turning to Elphaba in disbelief.

"What are you doing?" Glinda cried.

But the Witch was beyond listening to them, she pointed to the windows and screamed at the birds, "Go! Go you stupid inbred things and tear the mask off that damned Scarecrow once and for all! Gouge out the eyes of Dorothy and the Lion! Make them suffer!"

"No!" Liir cried, "You can't hurt Dorothy!"

"Just watch me!" she snarled at him, knocking him out of her way as she marched back to the window.

The Major stared after her with a horrified expression, and grabbed her arm tightly. "No. Stop this!"

But the crows were already taking to the air, screeching as they soared in a thick black cloud from the spiraling dark tower of Kiamo Ko. The Witch smiled and the look was so unpleasant and horrible that anyone else would have immediately released his hold on her, but not Iron Klaus. "Harming the girl isn't going to do any good," he told her.

"What?" she said bitterly, "don't tell me you've fallen in love with the little farm twit too, like everyone else in Oz. She dropped a house on my sister, stole my shoes, and killed my dog," the Witch turned her face back to the window, "I for one, have had enough of her."

**To be Continued in Chapter Eleven: Drinking Mysterious Things from Strange Bottles is Probably Not a Good Idea **


End file.
